We’ll be turning 5 million kilos of ‘waste’ into nourishing food over the next 3 years!

Fact is Australia produces MORE than enough food to feed everyone. In Victoria alone, 125,000 tonnes of edible fruit and veg is lost on farms every year.

Why? When crops do exceptionally well, growers end up with a surplus they can’t sell – and can’t afford to transport to charities like ours.

Of course, WE want that surplus here at Foodbank…so our unique approach to sourcing is making sure that’s happening.

Working alongside farmers, growers and packing houses to understand how their season is shaping up, we provide innovative and sustainable ways to secure any surplus – supplying collection bins, and finding empty space on trucks to move the produce.

Growers can then donate the product in a really positive way. Tangibly helping Victorians, without the cost of getting the food to us. Wins all round

What we’ll do with YOUR help

Reduce food waste by 5 million kilos in three years

Support farmers and regional communities

Offset 1.9 million kilos of carbon dioxide equivalent

Provide 53 million serves of seasonal fruit & veg to Victorians

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A supermarket where everything’s special

Imagine not being able to feed your family. Such a stressful, lonely place to be.

Then you hear about a cool new supermarket in your neighbourhood… where you can fill a trolley to help nourish the people you love AND it’s completely free of charge.

Ta da. We’ve just opened a supermarket EXACTLY like that at our Morwell and Ballarat Community Food Centres providing 100s OF LOCAL FAMILIES PER WEEK with trolleys full of fresh produce, dairy and all their pantry essentials.

Putting the ‘super’ back into supermarket for hard hit regional communities – with YOUR support.

In Ballarat, our supermarket opened in March last year with a pilot program run in partnership with our friends at Federation Uni for students experiencing severe hardship. It has since supported over 1,000 young people living in and around Ballarat.

Now, the supermarket is open to local families who are referred through our local charity partners, so they can do their weekly shop minus the unimaginable stress of wondering how to feed their kids on a non-existent food budget.

Over in Morwell, we opened our supermarket at the beginning of December last year, launching a 16 week pilot program in collaboration with two of our local charity partners. The program gave 50 families a week living in Morwell and surrounding areas easy access to healthy food leading up to that painful Christmas period and is now continuing right through into Autumn.

It’s been a huge success so far, with each family getting their hands on 25kg of food per visit – enough to fill a whole trolley!

What are the supermarkets like?

Well, shoppers get to select their food from baskets brimming with fresh seasonal fruit and veggies, bays stacked with fresh bread, fridges stocked with yoghurt and milk, and aisles full of pantry staples like pasta, rice, cereal, and cans of tuna and legumes. It’s exactly the same as shopping at your local supermarket, but without the cost!

We’re so grateful to YOU for helping provide 100s of regional families with the most caring supermarkets on the planet

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The new centres of our universe.

Km’s away from Melbourne, two new Foodbank ‘satellites’ are sending out fresh, healthy, seasonal food…

You probably heard the cheers all through regional Victoria, as we officially opened our Community Food Centres in both Ballarat and Morwell.

Serving as a hub, or should we say ‘hug’, for local regional communities built in partnership with Vic Government.

With your support, these centres mean that fresh, chilled and frozen food no longer needs to be trucked in from Foodbank’s Yarraville warehouse, so local charities can directly access the healthy, nutritious food they need. Exciting times ahead…

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Dippity doo da – what a recipe!

We show our love and gratitude through food, so here’s a tasty little treat from us to you with thanks…

Longer days, birds chirping, flowers blooming, and green everywhere we look. Inspiring, right?

Enjoy this fresh Spring recipe from our Cooking Class team that is green, light and kindergarten level easy!

Spring Pea Dip

Serves – 4
Prep Time – 15 mins

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 cups frozen peas
• 2 avocados
• lemon, juiced
• 200g feta
• 1 cup mint
• 1/3 cup dill

Method

1. Cover the frozen peas with boiling water and allow them to warm up. Then strain.

2. In a food processor, add the peas, avocado, mint, dill, feta and lemon juice. Pulse until smooth.

3. Serve with carrot sticks or on crusty bread with a sprinkle of sumac, and black pepper. Or however takes your fancy!

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Yes, fast food can be healthy.

​​​​​This may come as a surprise, but here at Foodbank Vic there’s a kind of ‘fast food’ we’re happy to embrace…

Did you know that Foodbank Victoria dates all the way back to the 1930s? Boy, have we come a long way since then! Did we ever deliver food in Flintstone cars? No, we’re not quite that old… but we have made some big improvements along the way.

Until recently, our fresh fruit and veggie deliveries rolled up to our warehouse doors in bins. Our volunteers would sort produce out of those bins into smaller boxes for distribution. Now, we have a brand-new packing line that makes this process not x1, not x2, but X9 TIMES FASTER.

A massive thank you to the Phil Taylor Foundation for donating this machine and helping us get more food out to where it needs to be!

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Some pretty spectacular spatulas.

What’s giving red velvet cupcake AND red-carpet vibes? Only our brand-new batch of celebrity spatulas…

Last year, we gave celebrities the challenge of designing their very own spatulas to raise funds for Foodbank. Now, it’s officially time for round two… and guess who’s stepped up to the plate this year?

Pick up a piece of art to keep in your kitchen at home, with designs created by Foodbank ambassadors Hamish Blake and Chrissie Swan, plus Sophie Monk, Adam Liaw, Glenn Robbins, and legendary Herald Sun cartoonist Mark Knight.

Available from October exclusively through Minimax (not long to wait now!)

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Thanks Victoria – you brought all the food!

​​Your response to our Emergency Food Drive knocked our socks off (not our steel capped boots tho)…

We put the call out for help, and you sure did answer   At our Emergency Food Drive on August 10-11, we saw first-hand that gritty ‘roll up your sleeves and we’ll make this happen’ attitude that is pretty much part of Victoria’s DNA.

All weekend long, our community rocked up to our Yarraville Warehouse with smiles, beautiful words of encouragement and best of all, arms and boots full of food.

With our volunteers cheering them on like a finals crowd at the ‘G, there were cars of all kinds, scooters and Harleys, families with their kids, a gleaming convoy of vintage Thunderbirds and not one but TWO big red CFA trucks. Hugs were exchanged, and friendships forged as our oversized bins began to fill with 100’s and 100’s of cans, packets and boxes of the items we needed to help feed Victorians.

And, ever since that weekend, the tonnes of food you brought to our giant roller doors have been heading straight back out of our warehouse and onto the tables of those who need it most.

You know that line from David Bowie, ‘We can be heroes – just for one day’? Well, you were…except it was TWO days and the impact of your generosity is going to last for much longer than that.

Couldn’t get there yourself? You can still be part of our Virtual Food Drive so head over there and fill up a bag, basket or trolley to help feed more Victorians.

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Who doesn’t love a heart-melting moment?

‘Hope’ was in for a real soaking this Winter, until you helped us defy BOM’s gloomy forecast…

From frosty mornings in Fed Square to bone chilling rains in the Central Highlands, Foodbank Victoria markets popped up all over the state, each week, right across Winter – no matter what the weather threw at us.

All thanks to everyone who gave so generously to our Winter Appeal including our marvellous Matched Giving donors and regular givers.

That’s thousands and thousands of YOU helping remove the ‘NOT’ in the stomachs of 65,000 Victorians a day who rely on Foodbank.

You’re creating warm smiles and sending a message of ‘Hey, we’ve got your back’ with all that fresh, beautiful veg and fruit we pack into boots, bags and baskets.

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You’re never too young to be crowned AWESOME!

Meet one of the youngest members of our Nourish Collective – Elena, who is proof that you can do amazing things for your community at any age.

At just 10 years old, Elena decided to sign herself up to our regular giving program (a community we like to call our Nourish Collective), with her parent’s approval, of course, and now generously donates some of her savings each month to help the 65,000 people we’re feeding each and every day.

And she’s even inspired her younger sisters to do the same!

“I love donating to Foodbank knowing it helps families have food” she said.

And we love Elena too.

Our Nourish Collective are nothing short of amazing. Lately, we’ve been relying on their help. More than ever before.

Just like the prices rising on your local supermarket shelves, it’s becoming more and more expensive to source the food we need. All while demand continues to grow and grow. Which is why we need donations that we can count on, each and every month. Providing the funds we need to nourish the people who need our help now.

Pretty awesome generosity, right? We think so too.

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