2024 Stats and Snack Battle

Welcome to the 105,753 newbies who are reading this yearly wrap for the first time. We hope you’ve picked a team in the hotly anticipated sausage roll vs party pie contest. 

From 762,515 donations this year we collected 358,382 litres of whole blood. That’s 1,500 standard council wheelie bins, or the cargo holds of 3.5 Boeing 747 freighters.

Thanks to 222,158 of you making 875,059 donations, we collected 721,924 litres of plasma. That’s 3,400 standard council wheelie bins, or the cargo holds of four Boeing 747 freighters filled with liquid gold.

All up 1,665,114 donations (1,080,306 litres) is not quite enough blood products to sink the Titanic (at less than 1% of its internal volume), but it would fill five Boeing 747 freighters, or the cargo holds of six Airbus A380s. 

Together you’ve made 2024 our biggest year for blood since we rolled into the roaring 20’s. Thank you! Shout out to those of you visiting us at the busiest blood donor centre — Melbourne CBD — but also to those of you at the centres with the biggest growth in 2024: Moore Park, Bunbury, Mackay, Brunswick, and Lismore. 

More than 18,000 donors hit their 25th milestone donation this year. Now is the time for you to set your own donation goal— something that 4,785 donors did in 2024. Among those who set goals, 81% reached half their goal, and 13% achieved their goal — so there’s room for you to be part of an elite group if you set yourself up for 2025! 

Dream Teams

16,848 Lifeblood Teams made 603,219 donations this year. The top five Teams were Army, followed by Donate for Amira, then Navy, Airforce (RAAF), and Victoria Police. This is the first time a Team created for a patient is in the top 5.

64,145 of you booked to donate with a mate, using the friends function in our app to book in with your blood buddy. Thank you to the many donors, Teams, and advocates who joined forces to ensure patients around Australia get the products they need. 

Beyond blood

We welcomed 375 milk donors, helping us to distribute 4,333 litres of donated breast milk to premature babies in 39 hospitals around the country. 24 Perth locals took part in our Microbiome program, helping us to supply FMT to four clinical trials, while nationally we recruited 13,459 stem cell donors. 

Refresh yourself

And now to our Greatest Snack achievers, the goods most frequently lining your plates after you’ve done the good work of donating. 

In the battle waged between our pastry products, the beacons of baked goods have passed the baton between one another year on year. 2024 is no different, with sausage rolls snatching the mantle from party pies. But the snack story isn’t that simple. Oh no. It’s our vegetarian and vegan friends who have driven the roll to glory this year; 1,004,235 saussie rolls strolled out the door in 2024, and party pies thought they had it in the bag with their grand total of 1,067,422 — but when we add in the veg and vegan options, the rolls have it, at 2,668,128.

The one thing it seems everyone can agree on is the accompaniment: tomato sauce. You’ve enjoyed 31,000 litres of the stuff! That's approaching almost 10% the volume of all whole blood donations for the year. We’d start to wonder if you were drinking the stuff in cups if it weren’t for the Nippy’s flying out the fridge doors. 

Of the 215,000 litres of flavoured milk consumed by Lifeblood donors there is a clear favourite: chocolate. Coffee flavour takes out the silver podium, with strawberry and honeycomb trailing in a long way behind — seems those of you who prefer pink and yellow milk will never have to worry about nabbing your favourite flavour. 

Finally we enter the all-important biscuit race. Almost 1.3m biscuits have been handed out in 2024. The humble yet versatile cracker is a crowd favourite, at 483,550. In the sweet category, Byron Bay Cookie reigns most beloved (718,000), but Tim Tams put up a good showing at 368,000. 499,000 Freddos hopped out the door, along with 223,000 Caramello Koalas, and 738,000 Springhill bites and slices, so we can rest assured your sweet teeth got their due. 

Feeling hungry after all this snack talk? Book your next donation, it’s time to get started on next year’s numbers!