Proposed Alice Springs Foodbank to have annual capacity to serve 500,000 meals
A proposed Foodbank facility in Alice Springs would be armed with enough capacity to dish up 500,000 meals a year, development application documents have revealed.
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A PROPOSED Foodbank facility in Alice Springs would be able to dish up half a million meals in its first year, development application documents reveal.
It comes as the charity looks to combat levels of hunger in the region, with organisations currently only able to supply a fraction of the meals necessary to feed the estimated 10,000 people experiencing food insecurity in Alice Springs.
The application, which has been gazetted on the NT planning website from Friday July 9, includes proposals to include a warehouse and distribution centre as well as a Food hub at the facility.
If approved, it would be located at 30 Stuart Hwy Ciccone and would operate five days a week.
“The new Foodbank warehouse is expected to distribute up to 250,000 kilogram of food for marginalised people in need in the first 12 months of operation, equivalent to 500,000 meals for families in need,” the application said.
The facility would create five new jobs for the Alice Springs community.
In the application, Foodbank said the new centre would help tackle shocking levels of food insecurity in the region around Alice Springs.
“Research shows that between 50 and 100 times the current level of food relief is needed to support the current levels of demand in Alice Springs,” it said.
“More than 10,000 people experiencing food insecurity will be directly supported by the project. With additional families supported in the outlying communities of Alice Springs also assisted.”
The organisation reiterated its mission statement to “end hunger”.
The new centre would add an extra $3.19m to the community directly, another $1.57m indirectly, and another 10 indirect jobs to the local community.
The development application also reassures council Foodbank would preserve a native gum tree in the rear carpark.
The organisation has requested that the NT planning authorities allow the centre to only have 11 car parks, four spaces fewer than what development assessments typically mandate.
The new facility comes amid reports Indigenous people nationally are suffering from some of the highest levels of hunger in the world.
The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health survey last year found 43 per cent of Indigenous people reported going hungry at some point in the year prior.
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