By CASEY NEILL
THE South East Food Hub is hungry for growth.
It started in Dandenong a year ago as a pilot project for delivering local produce to local people in Casey, Cardinia, Greater Dandenong and the Yarra Ranges – an area under-represented in both customer access to fresh food and easy producer access to market.
“We try to help the smaller farmers in the local area to have an outlet for their produce and get a fair price for their food,” operations manager Naomi Atkins said.
“We will supply businesses or individuals. They just hop online, order what there is available from the list and then we get it from the farmers directly.
“We get all the food in here, repack it and then it gets sent out on a Tuesday.”
Fruit, vegetables, juices, jams, preserves, cheese and eggs are on the hub menu, and meat and other produce are on the cards.
About 10 farmers are filling the 60-plus orders placed with the hub each week.
“You can order as much or as little as you want,” Ms Atkins said.
“Generally people will pick the buying group that’s closest to them and it gets delivered to a central point and then they would go and pick it up.”
The not-for-profit hub outgrew its initial Cheltenham Road warehouse space, occupied by charity Avocare, and is now based at Calfresco Organics in Kooweerup.
“Hopefully, as we expand, we’re going to need more staff and a bigger area. Watch this space,” Ms Atkins said.
“It’s a bit of catch 22 at the moment.
“We’ve got some farmers we want to bring on board, but until we get bigger it’s a bit tricky actually getting their produce in because they don’t want to deliver for nothing.
“If it were bigger quantities they would do so.
“We need to grow our customer base.”
Ms Atkins wants to see the hub movement grow, too.
“I would love for everybody to know about it and to have the opportunity to get great fresh produce and keep farming sustainable for the smaller farmers,” she said.
“For some of them I think their main outlet is going to be through farmers’ markets and you get a day like this (pouring with rain) on a Sunday morning and who wants to go to those?”
Visit www.southeastfoodhub.org or www.facebook.com/sefoodhub to get involved.
