Ronni Kahn and her OzHarvest charity takes spare food from restaurants and gives it to the needy, preparing 110,000 meals a month.

She believes that good quality restaurant food should not be wasted while hungry people starve. So she did something about it.

Six years later, Ms Kahn has been awarded Australia's Local Hero for 2010.

The OzHarvest charity currently helps 163 charities in Sydney, Canberra and Wollongong. But now she has another ambition - to help the hungry in every Australian city.

"It's unconscionable that that food should not go to good hungry mouths," the Sydney woman told reporters in Canberra.

"There is food going to waste in every major city, every single day and there are people who are going hungry and people who could benefit from this."

To make her program work, Ms Kahn's legal team lobbied NSW, the ACT, Queensland and South Australia to change their laws so food could be given away without fear of liability.

She is hoping a change in other state laws will enable her program to go national.

Congratulations Ronni and well done.