In a first for Cairns’ reef tourism industry, Great Adventures has joined forces with OzHarvest, Australia’s leading food rescue organisation, in a pilot program to provide excess quality food from its daily outer reef operations.

Quicksilver Group Managing Director Tony Baker said, “We’re absolutely delighted to be able to contribute to the work done by OzHarvest in our community with this pilot program. Initially food is being collected three times per week and in the 3 months since commencing, we are donating the equivalent of more than 600 meals per week to OzHarvests’ recipient charities. This will start to increase significantly, because in the past few weeks we have started collecting food from our reef vessels Ocean Spirit and Silverswift”

Great Adventures meals are catered by the Pullman Cairns International, one of Cairns leading 5 Star hotels and while food quantities are assessed daily depending on passenger requirements, there is inevitably excess food at the end of the day. This has been a wonderful initiative championed by our Customer Service team recognising there was an opportunity to see this food directly assist those in need in our community.

Manager of Oz Harvest Cairns, Jana Gorski said, “Throwing away good food also wastes all the resources used in the production of that food. Despite the waste, 2 million Australians rely on food relief every year. We are excited to have Great Adventures on this journey with us to reduce food waste while providing much needed assistance to those in need in our community.”

OzHarvest currently supplies 23 agencies in the Cairns area that provide meals for those in need with new charities coming onboard regularly.