Food rescue entrepreneurs
by Metropol | March 18, 2026 8:33 am
Two new businesses have just launched in Christchurch, both focused on addressing food waste.
“This is not just another business announcement,” says cofounder of Misfit Garden Jen Long. “It’s about sustainability, climate-scale food waste, local growers, community resilience, and rethinking how we value produce. All themes that land with everyday New Zealanders battling with the cost of living, being sustainable and eating healthy.”
Every year, about $3 billion of food is wasted in Aotearoa, according to the food waste survey by Rabobank and food rescue charity KiwiHarvest. But wait, there’s worse. That figure is about the food we throw away after we’ve bought it from the supermarket, takeaway outlet, local restaurant, or similar. Many more tonnes of food crops in New Zealand are wasted before they even leave the farm, not because they’re bad, but because they don’t meet cosmetic expectations.
In other words, food is thrown away for not being pretty enough. And when food is wasted, so are the resources used to grow it. About 25% of the world’s freshwater supply is used to grow food that never gets eaten.
Alongside her business partner, Sofia Dekovic, Jen started Misfit Garden during a Covid-19 lockdown back in 2020. A subscription fruit and vegetable box service aiming to connect people with local farmers, it was born out of a desire to do better.
“Perfectly good fruit and vege gets dumped, ploughed under, or fed to animals, just because it dares to have a bump, curve, or an extra leg,” says Jen.
“What if we stopped treating delicious, nutritious fruit and vege as waste just because it doesn’t look ‘perfect’? What if instead we rescued that produce, paid growers fairly, and connected it with everyday Kiwi households?”
Misfits in Ōtautahi
This month, Misfit Garden is officially launching in the South Island. The first deliveries began on 12 March 2026, bringing this food rescue movement to local homes, families, and farmers.
What started as a market stall and one-off deliveries has grown into a nationwide movement that sources seasonal produce directly from the people who grow it, prioritising growers’ needs and turning surplus into subscription boxes delivered weekly to homes across the country.
“Instead of telling growers what we want (which is how the food system usually works), we speak to them each week to find out what is already grown and what is needing a home,” Jen says. “In your Misfit Box you can expect the ‘too big’, the ‘too small’, the ‘too misfit’, as well as some fresh produce – the way it’s meant to be.”
Book your box through the website at misfitgarden.co.nz.
Too Good
The local launch of Misfit Garden follows hot on the heels of Too Good To Go. The world’s largest consumer marketplace for surplus food, the service launched in Ōtautahi last month after operating in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland since October 2025. The idea is that local bakeries, cafes, restaurants, and grocery stores sign up to the Too Good To Go app and register their business.
Then, local residents use the app to discover which eateries are offering heavily discounted rates on their surplus food.
In just four months, the app helped Kiwis save more than 30,000 meals from going to waste. As well, the B Corp-certified company is now one of the top Food & Drink apps in the New Zealand App Store.
Source URL: https://metropol.co.nz/food-rescue-entrepreneurs/