{"id":112001,"date":"2025-11-01T07:15:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T07:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/112001\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T07:15:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T07:15:08","slug":"food-for-love-charity-raises-50000-thanks-to-south-island-butter-bidding-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/112001\/","title":{"rendered":"Food For Love charity raises $50,000 thanks to South Island butter bidding war"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cSo I was like, let\u2019s find [another brand of] butter and see if we can beat that $10,000 \u2026 and we did it, and it was absolutely incredible,\u201d Chamberlain said.<\/p>\n

\"FoodFood For Love general manager Jodie Stuart (left) and Bayleys Canterbury auctioneer Tina Chamberlain with the 10 blocks of Mainland butter that sold for $11,500 at a charity auction in W\u0101naka last night. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

The volunteer auctioneer \u2013 Bayleys W\u0101naka is a partner of Food For Love \u2013 asked Fonterra to donate 10 blocks of Mainland butter, the brand chosen as a nod to the South Island\u2019s Mainland nickname as the geographical size superior to the North Island.<\/p>\n

Mainland was chosen as a rival of sorts to Waikato-native Anchor, although both are part of a sale to France\u2019s Lactalis agreed to by the dairy co-operative\u2019s members<\/a> this week.<\/p>\n

After an absentee bid of $1000 by Crown Range local and celebrity chef Nadia Lim to get the auction started, subsequent bidders added another couple of thousand dollars, Chamberlain said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was sitting at around $3000 and I said, look, we at least need to get to $5000, because that would be on par of [averaging] $500 per block [like the Auckland auction].<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd this lady just said, \u2018I\u2019ll give you $5000\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chamberlain, still keen for the win, asked the woman if she could bid another $50.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody said, \u2018I\u2019ll give her $50. And that started it \u2026 somebody else said, \u2018I\u2019ll give her $100\u2032, and I said \u2018does anyone want to give her $1000 to strengthen her bid?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it carried on until we got to $11,500. She won with all these contributions from other people in the crowd \u2026 even I contributed $100.\u201d<\/p>\n

Afterwards, the woman posed for a photo with her financial supporters, before donating all 10 blocks back to Food For Love.<\/p>\n

But Chamberlain, whose competitive spirit had helped rouse the audience, isn\u2019t done yet, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m pretty sure Fonterra will be stoked, but then somebody said to me, \u2018Why don\u2019t you challenge Fonterra to match that $11,500?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I\u2019m going to put the challenge out to Fonterra<\/a> to do so, because Food For Love said dairy is one of the things they really struggle with when they\u2019re making their meals, because it\u2019s so expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

About $50,000 was raised through last night\u2019s gala, live and silent auctions, Food For Love general manager Jodie Stuart said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re constantly fundraising and going out for community grants \u2026 but this is the biggest fundraiser we\u2019ve ever done. This will help us focus on our cooking and not have to be doing as much fundraising in this financial year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"FoodFood For Love is a charity where volunteers make free meals for those in need in the Upper Clutha area of the South Island. Bulk meals are also made for the elderly. Photo \/ Food For Love via Facebook<\/p>\n

Recipients are nominated by others to support them while dealing with mental or physical illness, injury, bereavement and relationship or financial difficulties. Bulk cooked meals are also provided for the elderly at weekends or other times as necessary.<\/p>\n

Demand for the free meals provided by the 9-year-old not-for-profit was \u201cabsolutely\u201d growing, Stuart said.<\/p>\n

Food For Love and its volunteers, who now number more than 170, made and delivered more than 9220 meals in the last financial year, compared with 1700 in 2020-21 \u2013 an increase of more than 400%, Stuart said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd in the last three years we\u2019ve grown 132% in the number of nominations we get \u2026 so, yeah, the growth has been huge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cherie Howie is an Auckland-based reporter who joined the Herald in 2011. She has been a journalist for more than 20 years and specialises in general news and features.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cSo I was like, let\u2019s find [another brand of] butter and see if we can beat that $10,000…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[80135,42344,74,5837,80133,46330,298,80134,1977,1259,80136,156,564,2082,29888,2514,2882,111,139,529,69,1523,2081,11596,1974,1240,3179,2742,61,6149],"class_list":["post-112001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-80135","tag-42344","tag-after","tag-battle","tag-bidding","tag-blocks","tag-butter","tag-butters","tag-charity","tag-community","tag-crush","tag-entertainment","tag-food","tag-for","tag-handed","tag-island","tag-love","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-north","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-raised","tag-raises","tag-record","tag-south","tag-thanks","tag-thousands","tag-to","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}