Hamilton City Council has been cooking up something special for the community with a new resource to help Hamiltonians find and grow free and low-cost food across the city.

Today, Wednesday 11 September, Council officially launched the Kai Map – a digital tool to help Hamiltonians find free kai options in their local community.

The map builds on the work of the Kai Collective, which was established in 2020 as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Collective collaborates with more than 40 key community stakeholders, organisations and whaanau to provide access to food for people in Hamilton.

Councillor Anna Casey- Cox has been a part of the Kai Collective since its creation and is excited to see the Kai Map come to fruition.

"Apart from being essential for all of us, kai provides a sense of kotahitanga – it helps to brings people together, and that plays a part in creating a Kirikiriroa where our people thrive.

“Council’s Community and Social Development team support a lot of the amazing work that already happens in the kai space. The Kai Collective put our heads together to look at how we could make it easier for our community to find and grow kai in the city – and the Kai Map was born.”

Another positive outcome of the Kai Collective and the Kai Map initiative is the reduction in food waste – with extra food being donated to our kai sites, less will be thrown away and instead will go towards feeding our community.

Te Whare o Te Ata Centre Manager, and member of the Kai Collective, Ofa Pouono, said the map will be a great tool to help the centre reach more members of the community.

“Our centre does a lot in the kai space already – we have crop swaps, cooking classes, mana kai, and we’re a part of the Kaivolution programme,” said Pouono. “As a community house, being able to help out more Hamiltonians, to make sure everyone has enough to feed their whaanau, is a really important value in our mahi.”

The Kai Map currently has 54 kai locations and includes information about when and where kai can be collected and what organisation oversees some collection points. You can find the Kai Map on the Council website at hamilton.govt.nz/kaimap, and if anyone has any food sources to add this can be submitted on the map or by emailing kaimap@hcc.govt.nz.

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