The Daily Café on Commerce Lane is the public face of The Daily Charitable Trust — a registered Te Puke charity whose mission is bringing delicious, nutritious food to every table. The café and catering team serve great food, host community connections, and generate the revenue that powers the trust's wider kaupapa, so every coffee and every event contributes to work happening behind the scenes.
The trust runs two connected wings: a social enterprise — the café and catering operation — and a charitable arm focused on making nutritious kai available to everyone with dignity and care. Affordable community meals, including frozen meals, school lunches and Meals on Wheels, are provided at cost, while free and rescued kai is delivered to schools across the rohe so nothing is wasted and tamariki are well supported. The Aroha Meals delivery service brings fresh, nutritious meals to locals who need them most.
Over the past decade The Daily has grown remarkably: opening the café in 2016, pivoting to cook thousands of meals during the COVID-19 lockdowns, delivering 2,300 school lunches a day to 12 schools through 2021–2024, and in 2025 partnering with the kiwifruit industry to deliver 12 tonnes of Zespri Gold Kiwifruit to schools. The trust now fully owns its commercial kitchen and is refitting its space into a functional hub for kai and connection.
Visitors can support the mission simply by enjoying the café, booking catering, volunteering as a delivery driver, or donating — the trust is a registered charity and provides receipts for tax purposes.
The Daily Café on Commerce Lane in Te Puke isn't a typical café — it's the public face of The Daily Charitable Trust, a registered charity whose mission is bringing delicious, nutritious food to every table. The café and catering team serve great food, host community connections and generate the revenue that helps power the trust's wider kaupapa. Every coffee, every event, every shared moment contributes to the work happening behind the scenes.
The trust runs two connected wings: a social enterprise — the café and catering operation — and a charitable arm focused on making nutritious kai available to everyone, with dignity and care. Affordable community meals, including frozen meals, school lunches and Meals on Wheels, are provided at cost, while free and rescued kai goes to schools across the rohe so nothing is wasted and tamariki are well supported.
The Daily's story began in 2016, when the café opened with a simple focus: creating a space that connects the community and the social sector, bringing people together around kai and conversation. That became the heartbeat of the organisation.
When COVID-19 lockdowns arrived in 2020, the team pivoted overnight. Café staff became essential workers, cooking and packing thousands of meals for distribution partners supporting whānau who were unwell or struggling financially — a huge collective effort grounded in care and service.
Between 2021 and 2024 the trust stepped into the national school lunches programme — one of the few charities tendering alongside businesses — and won the contract. To meet demand it built a second commercial kitchen and delivered 2,300 lunches every day to 12 schools for three and a half years, supporting an additional 200 students daily beyond the government contract and partnering with schools outside the programme so their tamariki weren't left behind. As that chapter closes, the trust has reached a major milestone: it now fully owns its commercial kitchen.
In 2025 the focus turned to fruit. A new partnership with the local kiwifruit industry enables weekly deliveries of Zespri Gold Kiwifruit to schools throughout the year — 12 tonnes in total — reaching tamariki across the rohe through localised systems that get good kai directly to schools.
In the café you'll find the everyday pleasures done well: good coffee, great food and a welcome shaped by manaakitanga. The catering team caters for events of all kinds, and every booking helps fund affordable meals for the community. Frozen meals, Meals on Wheels and school lunches are provided at cost, and the Aroha Meals delivery service ensures fresh, nutritious meals reach those who need them most in Te Puke — helped by volunteer drivers who use the trust's van on weekday lunchtime rounds.
There's more on the horizon. Feedback gathered through a community survey — available in English and Punjabi — is helping shape the Kai Loop and a mobile farmers' market, designed to improve access to affordable, fresh, locally grown food while supporting local growers and strengthening food resilience across the region.
The trust is also rebuilding. A current refit aims to create a functional hub for kai and connection: fitting out the kitchen and production space, increasing capacity for affordable meals, and keeping essential food support flowing. Donations — receiptable for tax purposes — help make it happen.
Supporting the mission can be as simple as enjoying a coffee, booking catering, volunteering as a delivery driver, or even caring for the café's plants once a week. Behind the scenes, General Manager Nina Vergnes leads day-to-day operations across the café and charitable initiatives, while Strategy & Partnerships Lead Chrissi Robinson connects funders, businesses and community organisations to the work on the ground.
With partners and sponsors including Zespri, Trinity Lands, BayTrust, TECT and many others, The Daily Charitable Trust keeps closing the loop: sustainable business supporting social good, and social good strengthening the community. Whether you come for the kai, the cause or both, a visit to The Daily leaves you having contributed to something bigger.