A win for Australia and a win for WA families!

Australia’s blistering victory over England in the first Ashes Test – wrapped up in just two days

(a feat we haven’t seen on Australian soil since 1932 not to mention that the last time an Ashes Test finished inside two days was in 1921!)

– didn’t just thrill cricket fans. It also sparked an unexpected wave of generosity from Optus Stadium straight into the hearts and homes of Western Australians doing it tough.

With the match ending so swiftly (sorry, England), Theme Group and Optus Stadium suddenly found itself with a mountain of perfectly good, unused food that was destined for hungry crowds who… well… didn’t get the chance to be hungry for very long. Rather than let anything go to waste, the stadium team swung into action and generously donated the surplus straight to Foodbank WA.

And just like the Aussie batting lineup – we made good use of every opportunity.

Thanks to the donation countless households and charity partners across the metro area received high-quality ingredients and fresh meal components. This included 576kg of fresh vegetables (a mixture of bulk and individual portions) meaning households had access to delicious pre-cut and ready to eat. We were also lucky to receive an array of delicious sandwiches – 220kg to be exact; a pallet of ready to eat meals, including delicious penne carbonara and small containers of ready to eat cheese platters.

Our Community Kitchen here in Perth received a load (14 pallets!) of fresh high-quality vegetables to turn into healthy meals which will be distributed across our six branches and 70 Foodbank mobile locations. This portion of the donation alone equates to 1,238 healthy meals. Half a pallet of the fresh vegetables was also sent to our Peel branch, delighting customers.

Perhaps most impressively, we got 5,200kg or six pallets of much-needed fresh milk – 5 pallets stayed in Perth to cater for the high demand; with a pallet also sent to Geraldton – where reliable supply can be harder to get than English runs in Perth.

All up the impressive donation totalled 6,146kg which equates to an incredible 3,411 meals which would have otherwise ended up in landfill and not ended up on a table of those most vulnerable in our community.

This unexpected food windfall turned a historic cricket moment into meaningful impact for communities right across WA. A huge thank you to Theme Group and Optus Stadium and their partners for hitting this one out of the ground – proof that even a two-day Test can deliver big results off the field.