A local charity that provides meals for more than 16,000 Tasmanians each week will receive upgraded warehouse facilities to expand capacity as cost-of-living pressures bite.
Loaves and Fishes began supporting those experiencing food insecurity in 2018 and has grown rapidly since.
The organisation collects 25,000kgs of food from charity partners, supermarkets, farms and orchards, conservatively valued at about $75,000 each week.
Community Services Minister Roger Jaensch said the state government’s $2.5 million investment will fund upgrades at warehouses in Devonport and Brighton.
This will give Loaves and Fishes “the capacity to respond to need when it arises but also to respond to supply when it arises as well”.
“We are building a system here which takes us from a food relief effort to a food resilience system for Tasmania,” he said.
“To be able to take in a large shipment of pumpkins from a crop that is not going to go to market, turn it into a form that can be stored here and saved here ready for when people need it wherever they are in Tasmania.”
The upgrades will include improvements to freezers, cool rooms, dry storage, pallet racking and processing facilities, as well as flooring and kitchen upgrades and the installation of solar panels.
Loaves and Fishes CEO Andrew Hillier said the upgraded facilities will enable the organisation to be more innovative.
“We’ll be able to store up to around 150 plus pallets of fresh and frozen produce at any one time and it will also give us the capacity to process hundreds of thousands of meals every week,” he said.
“By increasing the volume of food collection, storage and distribution, we anticipate helping thousands more individuals annually, as well as extending our support to additional partner organisations across the state.”
Up to 30 traineeships and apprenticeships will be created during the upgrades, which are expected to be completed by May.
