With the help of Australia’s industry and the general public, Foodbank’s annual (August) Food Fight campaign has almost doubled its 2015 result, collecting enough donations for 13 million serves, to feed Australians in need.

Each year Food Fight aims at putting food insecurity front and centre for grocery shoppers, with Foodbank industry partners pledging a food donation for every one of their participating products purchased at Woolworths stores. This year these partners included the iconic brands SPC, Ardmona, Helga’s, Vetta, Devondale, Primo, Weet-Bix, NESCAFÉ, Flora, Continental and Mount Franklin.

Simple but engaging recipes using a collaboration of Food Fight products as well as other content campaign triggers were created by Whisk Media Group (publishers of myfoodbook.com.au),  making it easier for consumers to get involved and brands to be recognised. These included cooking videos, recipe cards for brands and an e-cookbook book, ‘Food for Families’, which the public can download via the Foodbank website. The campaign was brought to life in Woolworths stores via point-of-sale material, in-store radio, product highlights in the store catalogues as well as in Fresh magazine.

The activation was supported by strong above-the-line support in the form of high impact television, radio, print and out-of-home advertising. The media components were donated by Foodbank’s generous advertising and PR partners, Havas Group, Red Agency and Group M.

The PR and social elements of the campaign focussed on public engagement on the streets and online. An over-sized purple lunchbox travelled around the country and the public was invited to snap, hashtag and upload a photo of it on their social media channels. For every #JoinFoodFight upload throughout August, a meal was donated to an Aussie in need.

Foodbank Australia CEO, Brianna Casey, said the support from the organisation’s industry partners and the public was overwhelming.

“It’s reassuring to see how much Australians want to help when they realise the enormity of the issue in our own backyard. Although largely out of sight, hunger is a growing blight on our community, with over two million Australians seeking food relief from charities each year – a third of whom are children,” she said.

“There is currently a 29 per cent shortfall in the amount of food needed to ensure no Australian seeking food relief is turned away empty handed, a deficit that the food donations resulting from Food Fight will help to remedy. We cannot thank the public, our food partners and agencies enough for their support, but the fight isn’t over and we hope everyone will continue to help us bridge the gap,” Casey added.

The food donations generated by the Food Fight campaign will go towards feeding more than 500,000 people each month. One such beneficiary is single mother Trina.

“Having to bring up five young children on my own has been a struggle, but nothing is worse than the idea of not being able to provide for them. Having access to food helps me to make more nutritious meals for my children so they are eating better than they have in a while. With this help I now have money to support the kids in getting their education. I really just want to give them the best future I can,” she said.

• The number of serves achieved in this year’s campaign includes:
• Enough Helga’s bread and Flora to make over 1.2 million sandwiches
• Enough Weet-Bix for a million nutritious breakfasts
• Enough Nescafé Blend 43 for 615,000 comforting cups of coffee
• Enough SPC Baked Beans for half a million meals