Group turns unwanted farm produce into meals for charities

WHAT do 6000kg of Cape Grim beef, paddocks full of seed potatoes and 17 tonnes of rice have in common?

Win for all: Kitchen manager Renee Debryn, agricultural science student Katie Zarb, Stephen Quarrell from TIA and Loaves and Fishers chief Andrew Hillier at the Devonport facility. Picture: Chris Kidd

WHAT do 6000kg of Cape Grim beef, paddocks full of seed potatoes and 17 tonnes of rice have in common?

They are surplus foods destined to go to waste. Instead, Loaves and Fishes turns the produce into 12,500 ready-made meals which each week are distributed to 914 charities across Tasmania to feed those who need a helping hand.

The food is taken to warehouses and then to a purpose-built facility in Devonport where the at-risk youth and long-term unemployed Loaves and Fishes trains turn it into nutritious dishes.

The project is part of the State Government’s Emergency Food Relief Strategy.

The state-of-the-art kitchen opened in July and Loaves and Fishes is in the process of developing a similar facility in Hobart.

It is also ready to launch a social enterprise for the jams and other preserves it makes from unwanted fruit and vegetables. The products are sold in retail stores.

“The cooks have to be creative and use what we get donated to best advantage,” Loaves and Fishes chief executive Andrew Hillier said as 400 serves of potato, swede and union soup simmered away in the kitchen this week.

“Last year we ended up with tonnes of unwanted cherries. recently we received 6000kg of Cape Grim beef and 17 tonne of rice came through a donation from SecondBite on the mainland,” Mr Hillier said.

“Unfortunately in Tasmania there are a lot of people who go without meals. In Devonport alone the breakfast program feeds 2000 students every morning.”

This week a group of Year 11 and 12 students visited the kitchen as part of a Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture program. The focus was on how better agricultural practices might stop around 25 per cent of edible fresh produce grown in Australia being thrown away due to visual imperfection or cosmetic damage.

As part of a new collaboration, TIA’s Forthside vegetable research facility will provide Loaves and Fishes with nutritious “ugly” fruit and vegetables to be used in its food production.

TIA student outreach co-ordinator Stephen Quarrell said the three-day Feed Your Mind, Feed The World camp showed students how sustainable agriculture works from before seed is sown right through until food arrives on the supermarket shelf.