PetRescue, PETstock and Mars Petcare Food Donation Program

Helping to feed Australia’s vulnerable pets 

Our pet food donation program aims to provide a welcome reprieve to Australian rescue organisations, local community organisations and families in crisis, who are struggling to provide food to their pets.

By bringing together two of our major partners, Mars Petcare and PETstock, we’ve created a national food donation program that delivers millions of dollars worth of free food to vulnerable pets.

Thanks to Mars Petcare’s commitment to donating more than $1 million worth of food every year to pets in need and PETstock’s support with delivery and distribution, we facilitate a program that ensures food is delivered wherever it is needed the most; to the right place, at the right time for hundreds of rescue and community outreach organisations across Australia.

Who do we help?

Food is donated to support pets in need via organisations including PetRescue member rescue organisations, community groups supporting pet owners, councils, vets and individual community pet carers.

Our priority is to help those pets that are most at-risk and organisations that are most in need of support at the time food becomes available. Unfortunately, not all organisations that apply will receive food during a round of donations. 

We prioritise allocation based on a number of factors including:

• Organisations reaching vulnerable or at-risk pets and have fewer avenues of support within their local community
• Where the demand is most urgent at the time the food becomes available
• Groups that support the broader community and at-risk pets
• Active PetRescue members - based on pets listed and marked as adopted within the last 12 months
• Type of product and quantities available at the time of donation
• Accessibility, delivery hub storage capacity and location 

How it Works 

In order to consistently deliver food to organisations in need throughout the year and to efficiently manage the extensive logistics involved, our program runs a rolling state by state distribution - with the aim that at least once a year each state will receive free food.

In order to ensure that the allocation is fair, we have a streamlined application process for distributing food donations.

For every round of donations, as pet food becomes available by Mars, an ‘expression of interest’ form will be sent out via email or member alert to the member’s main listed contact on PetRescue. To be eligible for donation(s), your form must be completed within the specified time frame.

Please note - not every group will receive a registration form for every donation round.

Our team will take into consideration a number of factors, such as the location of the organisation, the amount of donations and type of product available, organisation rehoming stats, etc.

Once we have the details of eligible groups, our team will reach out directly to allocate the donations and facilitate deliveries with the help of our partner PETstock, who provide local collection hubs via their stores.

Click here to read about some of our previous donations

For more information about our food donation program, and to register a request for support, please reach out to us via members@petrescue.org.au