Mango smoothie fundraiser at the 2023 Maitland Show was a disaster

Hardly anybody wanted to buy them at the Maitland Show.

"It was really quiet. Our only customers were the people who were volunteering at the show; none of the people who actually came to the show wanted them," Slow Food Hunter Valley's Helen Hughes said.

"We've learned that people who come to the show aren't coming for good, clean and healthy food - they're coming for Pluto Pups and the spiral potatoes and the blue drinks."

The group sold 6 kilograms of mango smoothies and have 44 kilograms left.

They will now hold a pop-up stall at Maitland Community Markets at Maitland Showground on Sunday, March 5, in a bid to sell the rest.

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Proceeds from the sale will go towards Slow Food's Rescue Food Kitchen, where volunteers make meals from ingredients OzHarvest gives them and then distributes them to the people who need it the most.

Slow Food's mango rescue has been one disaster after another.

The pallet of mangoes, from a farm near Townsville, were supposed to be sold at the December 1 Slow Food Earth Market but were lost in transit between Sydney and Newcastle.

The fruit was overripe when it finally made it to Maitland, and couldn't be sold.

All of the boxes had already been sold and paid for, so Slow Food volunteers had to refund all of the money.

Volunteers then worked to transform the mangoes into puree and bought a freezer to store 50kg of it at Maitland Showground.

Related: Mango mania will rise from the freezer

Ms Hughes said the group was determined to sell all of the mango puree and avoid food waste.

The donation of ham, cheese and tomatoes from OzHarvest - which were offered to help the group raise money through the sale of toasted sandwiches - also failed.

Ticket holders didn't want to indulge in a toasted sandwich, and hardly any were sold.

That then left Slow Food Earth Market Maitland chairwoman Amorelle Dempster with the task of turning the ingredients into meals that could be distributed to the less fortunate in the community.

"We didn't want any food waste, and Amorelle will go to great lengths to make sure that nothing is wasted," Ms Hughes said.