But Hastings residents were offered a free rice and curry meal on Monday as part of the Port Macquarie REAP food rescue group's food rescue lunch.

Secretary Katrina Humble said the amount of people who took advantage of a free lunch was amazing.

"We had a huge influx of people to start and then it died down a little bit," she said.

"The feedback within even the first half an hour was fantastic. A lot of people made the comment that the curry was better than they thought and we had people going back for seconds, thirds and even fourths, but I don't know where they put it all."

While Martin Place in Sydney aimed for 5000 servings, in Port Macquarie they were hopeful of hitting around 350.

Ms Humble said it was mainly about making residents aware of the positives of using leftovers to create meals instead of throwing them out.

"We want people to think positively about food wastage and all the food and leftovers we used could all be eaten by anyone," she said. "We'll hopefully do this every year and try to aim for 400 or 500 servings next year."

Port Macquarie was a "bit of a guinea pig" by being the first regional town to participate in a day of its kind.

Local chefs from XS Food, The Stunned Mullet, Spinnakers, Drury Lane and Latin Loafer prepared the dishes using rescued food from Coles, Woolworths Lake Cathie, Bakers Delight and farmers in the area.

"Think about what you throw away because you'd be surprised what you could make with leftovers," Ms Humble said.

"Any of our leftovers we'll send to places like our soup kitchens because they're struggling a little bit to make ends meet because there has been a lot of people coming up from the south this winter."