Nourished for Nil's founders formed the food service after wondering what happened to cafes' leftovers.

It started in a cafe, in Havelock North, one spring afternoon in 2016.

Mother of three boys, chiropractor, and emigre from New Jersey, Christina McBeth, got to wondering where the food on display would go at the end of the day.

"I naively thought they gave it all to their staff," she says, sitting in the small office at the back of the flourishing food rescue organisation she and friend Louise Saurin began in 2017.

MARTY SHARPE/STUFF Co-founder of Nourished for Nil food rescue organisation in Hastings Christina McBeth, right, with one of the original volunteers Nikki Gardner.

It's "mushroom day" the day McBeth agreed to meet for a chat. This means there is row upon row of boxes of mushrooms donated from the Te Mata Mushroom company being divvied up by a posse of volunteers in readiness to distribute to those coming to make use of the rescued food.

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MARTY SHARPE/STUFF Retired teacher Joe Boyce, 75, with some of the food he picked up from the Nourished for Nil food rescue organisation in Hastings.

Being a Thursday, it's also "pensioners day". From 10am to 11am the depot is open specifically for the elderly; those not keen on the hustle and bustle of the regular collecting time, which is 4.30pm-5.30pm Monday to Friday.

A queue has formed, stretching out the depot doors. Bonhomie, laughter and morning greetings abound. They're all clearly well acquainted.

"They're a hoot. They love coming. We can get 180 to 250 coming on a Thursday, and we get a couple of aged care vans too with residents wanting to pop-in and collect. We started it because we wanted something a little less intense, as the afternoons can be with children running round etc," McBeth said.

MARTY SHARPE/STUFF Nourished for Nil volunteers Makere Tawera-Hacche and Martin Wepa at work in the Hastings not-for-profit food rescue organisation.

A few days after that afternoon reverie in 2016 McBeth and Saurin decided to visit a few cafes and ask what they did with their leftovers. Eight out of 10 said they were throwing them away or giving them to pigs.

So a few days later McBeth and Saurin asked if the cafes would donate the food to give away. Seven out of 10 cafes said yes.

"Food rescue isn't new. It's been done elsewhere. We didn't invent the wheel," McBeth said.

MARTY SHARPE/STUFF Handing out rescued food at Nourished for Nil in Hastings.

They knew about Good Neighbour in Tauranga, Just Zilch in Palmerston North, the Free Store and Kaibosh in Wellington, among others.

"We thought 'let's do this'. We hassled the council. They let us set up a few tables in a small square in Hastings. It was perfect. We got our first volunteers. Our first day was February 13, 2017. We had 211 items of food and served 78 people," she said.

Within days it was clear that they were onto something, and they formed the not-for-profit organisation Nourished for Nil.

MARTY SHARPE/STUFF Nourished for Nil volunteers Ray Weir, Eamon Pearse, Felix Broecker and Maggie Asquith hard at work at the Hastings food rescue organisation.

It seemed a long time ago now.

"We don't count items anymore. Now we get 7-9 tonnes of food a week, given to about 250 people a day," she said.

Since May, 2017, the operation has worked out of a large building on Karamu Rd, Hastings. It used to be a Tremains real estate office. Director Simon Tremain let them use it for three months free of charge. Another donor stepped up and between he, Tremain and the council, the organisation has secured tenancy for three more years.

MARTY SHARPE/STUFF The back rooms are filled with fresh fruit and vegetables, tins and jars of all sorts, and a diverse range of other edibles.

"The council loves what we do because we keep all this stuff out of the landfill," McBeth said.

People come from all over Hastings, Napier and Waipukurau to collect the food. Everything is given away, no questions asked.

"The bulk of our customers, it seems, are people who work but are still finding it hard to make ends meet with living expenses so high. We also get a lot of seasonal workers and there is a percentage of people who come just because they love this concept," she said.

MARTY SHARPE/STUFF People come from all over Hastings, Napier and Waipukurau to collect the food.

The back rooms are filled with fresh fruit and vegetables, tins and jars of all sorts, and a diverse range of other edibles.

Some are seconds, some is nearing its best before date and some is just the excess that growers or manufacturers just want gone.

"They actually ask us if we can take more. There's just so much of it. The food banks don't take fresh produce. That would have once been dumped, or fed to the pigs," she said.

MARTY SHARPE/STUFF Thursday is "pensioners' day". From 10am to 11am the depot is open specifically for the elderly; those not keen on the hustle and bustle of the regular collecting time, which is 4.30pm-5.30pm Monday to Friday.

"We get a lot of one-offs too. Someone might phone and say 'we've got 200kg of frozen chicken left over, do you want it?'. We also get people coming along with stuff they've found in their pantry. It comes from everywhere," she said.

Saurin moved overseas in early 2018, at which point McBeth became sole manager. She's at the store every day, from shortly after making the school drop-off, until time to make the pick-up.

The organisation has one paid staff member, Nikki Gardner, and some 75 volunteers who help collect and distribute food everyday from 9am to 6pm. Most, but not all, are retirees.

MARTY SHARPE/STUFF Christina McBeth, co-founder and ceo of Nourished for Nil food rescue service in Hastings.

Asked what the common denominator of the volunteers was, McBeth pauses.

"It's interesting. It's actually a passion for food not going to waste. It certainly is for me. Waste makes me physically uncomfortable. Of course we all like to help others too, and this is the perfect combination," she said.

It costs about $80,000 a year to run Nourished for Nil and that's covered by a range of anonymous donors. Westpac this year became the first corporate sponsor and the operation does get help from KiwiHarvest, a large Auckland-based food rescue service.

MARTY SHARPE/STUFF Heinz Watties donates a lot of food to Nourished for Nil, Hastings.

One of those picking up items that Thursday was retired teacher Joe Boyce, 75.

"I'm not what I'd call 'needy'. I might be on the verge of it, but I could survive without it. It means I can spend my money on other things, like petrol. It's mostly about wanting to use all that food that would otherwise be wasted," he said.

"I usually get things to share with my elderly neighbours. They have some great stuff there [at Nourished for Nil], and they're very nice, very generous," he said.