Ronni Kahn as a child could never have imagined herself as a leader, let alone the boss of a food rescue charity, working to fix Australia's $36 billion a year food waste problem and seeing her idea go global.
"I only came into my own at the age of 50," she said, plainly.
The South African-born entrepreneur, who turns 70 this year, started OzHarvest in 2004.
It is now Australia's leading food rescue organisation, with 195 staff, 4000 volunteers and international equivalents opened in New Zealand, the United Kingdom and South Africa and soon-to-be-opened in Japan.
OzHarvest has a goal to halve food waste by 2030, saying it is critical in the climate change debate, responsible for 8 to 10 per cent of global greenhouse gases.
"Every time food goes to landfill, it's part of the climate crisis," she said.
OzHarvest and its yellow delivery trucks are now part of the national consciousness, its efforts to cut food waste evident in everything from taking excess fresh food and giving it to charities to educating the average householder on how to cut waste [big tip - don't go for the two-for-one deals at the supermarket. You're never going to use that second lettuce].
As she addressed the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday, engaging and passionate, speaking without notes, Kahn wanted to acknowledge her shy 15-year-old self who even turned down an overture by the principal of her school to be the head girl because she didn't believe she was enough.
"Standing in front of you all, I have found my voice," she said.
Kahn said there was nothing magical about establishing OzHarvest - she just saw an opportunity and ran with it. And put a stop to her "self-limiting beliefs" about what she was capable of doing.
She had been an event planner who celebrated the milestones of people and corporations with abundant food and drink, never wanting to squib on anything.
"There was no way I wanted someone to leave my event and go to the fast food joint down the road," she said.
"And for years, in my event business, I threw away food, I will admit that."
Until one day she did an event for a business and its 1000 staff that was "like a Roman banquet", the tables groaning with food, "wheels of parmesan, kegs of beer, barrels of wine".
"They drank and they barely touched the food and I had hundreds and hundreds of kilos of food and there was no way I was throwing away that food," she said. She loaded the food into a van and took it to the Matthew Talbot Hostel in Sydney in the dead of night, feeling intimidated and unsure if they would want it. "They said, 'Give it to us'," she said. It was that easy. And that was the start.
After years of bushfire and COVID and disruptions to supply chains, OzHarvest for the first time had to purchase food for those in need, Kahn saying an extra 1 million people required assistance during COVID. "I don't care what the government tells us, those numbers are not going down," she said.
Kahn said she had no desire to enter politics but hoped that more women were elected in the upcoming federal election. "I think if we had women in power, the world would be a better place," she said.
The lunch for Kahn's address was planned by the Press Club's executive chef Daren Tetley who made sure it showed efforts to reduce food waste. Vegetable offcuts from earlier in the week were used to make stock while left-over desserts had been frozen and mixed with coconut, dried fruit and chocolate to make protein balls. "We do a lot of it already. I have to do it," he said, of reducing food waste.
