Noumi strikes deal with charity, wishing it wasn’t needed

Noumi chief executive Michael Perich said the fresh dairy products being donated came from local farms.

“It’s then manufactured by our 230 staff that we have here at Shepparton,” Mr Perich said.

“And it absolutely gives us a buzz to see how this gets into the mouths of those in need in the community, especially for the kids that are less fortunate — how do they get the nutrition there in their food?”

Shepparton FoodShare chair Jeremy Rensford praised Mr Perich for caring for the local community and said the deal was “more than tokenism”.

“This is making a real impact on the ground for those that need it the most,” Mr Rensford said.

“This shouldn’t be at odds with making a profit and I commend you and your team for being able to do both — we certainly are grateful.

“Everybody here wants to make sure there’s a human connection, to make sure it’s actually making an impact in society and I’m here to tell you with authority that we actually are.”

Students from Gowrie St Primary School have celebrated their first year of a full-time lunch program that relies on donated food.

School lunch program co-ordinator Chelsea Smith said the school provided children with breakfast, lunch and morning tea.

“It keeps children’s nutrition at the forefront,” Ms Smith said.

“There is a lot of food insecurity in the local area so we feed over 200 kids at no cost to families at all.”

FoodShare provides most of the food for the program, with Ms Smith co-ordinating a team of cooks each morning.

The cuisine from the new industrial kitchen includes sushi, chicken pie and taco bowls.

“We have the pantry of everyone’s dreams; you walk into it and then it keeps going into another pantry.”

The school also provides an ongoing fruit bowl for ‘grazing’ during the day.

Gowrie St principal Eron Chapman said the program had run spasmodically since its inception three years ago and was based on a fundamental principle of children’s well-being.

“We always wanted it to be full time but we didn’t have the facilities, so it was a matter of waiting for the kitchen and dining areas to be built,” Ms Chapman said.

“We recognised (American psychologist Abraham) Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, in that kids need food — nutritious food — and we had a nutrition situation with our kids.”

Mr Rensford said he felt like a “proud grandfather” when he visited the school recently.

“They have a roster where the students actually cook their meals, so that every student is able to come to school and eat well.

“It wasn’t that long ago that some of them or perhaps a lot of them weren’t doing that and now they are.

“That’s an example of the type of impact this has.”

Mr Perich said Noumi was “at the moment” providing only milk to the community as part of the formalised deal.

“We do have plant-based manufacturers up in NSW which we donate from, but for this (program), we’re just focused on the liquid dairy products.”

Mr Rensford said FoodShare still required donations into the future.

“We are not ready to celebrate too hard because we still don’t get enough in, compared to what has been required of us to push out,” Mr Rensford said.

“And that is something that we’re completely ill at ease with but there’s not much to do except do the very best to try and fix that situation.

“I’ve been known to say ‘you know what, we wish our organisation was irrelevant, we wish that our community was fed well enough, that they didn’t need us’, but sadly in the current season and perhaps in the next few years at least it’s very unlikely; so we’ve got to do the very best that we can.

“As we do get bigger, we rely on these more forward-looking partners.

“And we are getting bigger. We don’t want to get bigger, but we’ve got no choice.”