Moira FoodShare is struggling to source chilled products after Foodbank Victoria announced in a letter that it would be ceasing the distribution of chilled products to the regional hub.
On September 1, Moira FoodShare manager James Rouel received a letter stating that Foodbank Victoria would no longer be distributing as many chilled items to regional food shares from June 2024.
The decision was made, according to the letter, following a Victorian Government decision to cease its support of Foodbank’s chilled funding allocation.
But in a statement, Carers and Volunteers Minister Ros Spence said there had been no cut in funding to Foodbank Victoria.
“We continue to provide $3.3 million in ongoing annual funding to Foodbank Victoria,” she said.
“In addition to this, we have provided $10 million to Foodbank for food relief hubs in Morwell and Ballarat.
“Our annual funding of Foodbank includes more than $580,000 for charity freight costs, ensuring fresh and chilled food can make its way across the state.”
According to the same statement, Foodbank Victoria was provided with two one-off payments of $250,000 each over the past two years to go towards the cost of ‘additional regional chilled charity freight’.
Before the alleged funding cuts, Moira FoodShare’s Cobram unit operated two walk-in refrigerators.
Now, the Cobram FoodShare only receives enough chilled products to fill one refrigerator — and, according to Mr Rouel, there is no guarantee even this will happen each week.
Mr Rouel said while each week varied in the number of chilled items the service could supply customers before the alleged funding cut, he had never seen the number this low before.
“It’s ... disappointing that we will no longer have products of really good nutritional value to help the residents that we support,” he said.
“Locally, we are really well supported by local businesses. Woolworths is fantastic, the bakeries are fantastic, Petstock is fantastic.”
The alleged funding cut impacting Foodbank’s ability to distribute chilled goods affects “all of regional Victoria”, Mr Rouel said.
“Every FoodShare across regional Victoria will be affected too,” he said.
“It means that we will no longer, or very rarely, have any chilled product, and it means that the level of nutritional value and variety will be significantly reduced.”
State Member for Northern Victoria Region Wendy Lovell called on the government to commit additional funding to regional and rural food shares so that they could source chilled items such as juice, milk and yoghurt.
“It [dairy] is desperately needed at food shares. Families who face financial distress will often cut more expensive grocery items like dairy first,” Ms Lovell said.
Foodbank Victoria said its arrangement with the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing is confidential so are unable to comment.