Our Pakenham Market Turned One!
This week, we’re celebrating Pakenham’s first birthday at the new location at Outlook Community Centre! Thanks to funding from VicHealth and our ongoing partnership with Cardinia Shire Council and Cardinia Food Movement, we reopened our Pakenham Market last year during Anti-Poverty Week. Since reopening, we have served over 1,850 customers at our market and an additional 210 through online Box Orders. Check out some of the photos of our celebration below or head to our social media pages for more.
Anti-Poverty Week
17th to the 23rd of October marks this year’s Anti-Poverty Week.
COVID-19 restrictions over the last two years have seen a significant impact on people being able to access food throughout Australia. Australian Council of Social Service published in a recent report that 96% of those who completed their Living in Lockdown survey were seriously struggling with the cost of living and that 41.5% were at risk of homelessness. The Foodbank Hunger Report 2021 stated that over one-third of Australians experiencing food insecurity had never experienced it before the pandemic. Additionally, 57% of severely food insecure Australians were going a whole day without eating, at least once a week. Unfortunately, we know that those with low-to-no income will often skip meals in order to afford paying things like rent and bills.
At The Community Grocer we are in strong support of Australian Council of Social Service call to Raise the Rate this Anti-Poverty Week, to ensure that people no longer have to choose between buying food and paying rent and bills. At TCG we work hard to determine where we open our markets based on rigorous needs-based assessments of the community. We then seek out potential market locations that present a balance of providing the things that we need for our markets to function, while also providing ease of access for the community, to ensure that those who are most in need of affordable fruit and vegetables are able to access them.
With our focus on purpose not profit we are able to supply fruit and vegetables to our community that are on average 30% more affordable than those at other retailers in the areas where our markets operate. This allows our community members to access affordable, high-quality, culturally appropriate fruit and vegetables in a dignified way. Providing our community members with a choice in what they take home to feed themselves and their families.
Whether you shop for high-quality Australian produce, for affordability, to avoid crowds and shop at an outdoor market, or to support our mission for fair food access to our communities, everyone is welcome at our markets!
Grocer Gift Comes to Pakenham
We believe that there needs to be an appropriate, dignified and sustainable approach to addressing food insecurity in Australia. Throughout the pandemic, we have witnessed firsthand the need for improved access to high-quality fruit and vegetables, particularly for those accessing emergency food relief. Our pre-existing paper-based voucher program, in partnership with a local community health organisation, Cohealth, saw over a fourfold increase in use during the pandemic.
We’d like to take this opportunity to officially announce the roll-out of the Grocer Gift Community Partnership Program to Pakenham and Cardinia.
Grocer Gift is our innovative new web platform that generates QR-coded vouchers - what we call Grocer Gift Cards. We work with Community Partners who are responsible for distributing these Grocer Gift Cards to their community members based on their needs. Grocer Gift Cards can be purchased by anyone so it’s a dignified process for recipients.
In addition, using Grocer Gift Cards allows recipients to choose their produce in a marketplace setting, ensuring the food they take home with them is familiar, culturally appropriate, and can be prepared or cooked using their available resources, knowledge and skills.
There are many underlying factors contributing to food insecurity and many of these impact on other areas of life. Working with us in distributing Grocer Gift Cards, Community Partners are able to provide more than food relief, and we know recipients of the Grocer Gift Cards are receiving wrap around support. This leaves both us and our Community Partners to do what we do best.
Our Grocer Gift Community Partnership Program was first launched at our Fitzroy and Carlton Markets in January 2021 to address the overwhelming need for a sustainable and dignified way to access nutritious food for people experiencing disadvantage.
We are so pleased with how this program has now been taken up at our Pakenham Market, and this is all thanks to our partners.
WINDERMERE PILOT
We’ve collaborated with Windermere as our first Community Partner in distributing Grocer Gift Cards as the pilot of our roll-out of the program in Cardinia. Working closely with Windermere to understand the unique challenges their community faces in accessing fresh produce Grocer Gift Program has also hit the road. We have been delivering a selection of Mixed Boxes to Cardinia residents who may be unable to attend our markets. So far we have seen a great response to the program and some fantastic feedback from our Grocer Gift customers, both those who have shopped at our market with their Grocer Gift Card and those that have received a delivery.
OUR PARTNERSHIP WITH MONASH UNIVERSITY
We are so fortunate to have a strong connection with Monash University who were recently researching the views and experiences of accessing food for those living in Cardinia Shire. All participants of this study received a Grocer Gift Card to be redeemed at our Pakenham Market. This survey will play a vital role in reimagining a food secure future in Cardinia Shire.
Grocer Gift in the future
We have worked hard over the last 12 months to bring the Grocer Gift Community Partnership Program to all of our markets to ensure more people in our community have access to fresh, high quality, culturally appropriate foods. However, our innovative Grocer Gift web platform also allows us to generate Grocer Gift Cards for the general public, just like a regular gift card. We are excited to announce that in the next few months we will have the option for our customers to purchase our Grocer Gift Cards through Open Food Network. These Grocer Gift Cards will be valid at all of our markets and allow people to purchase on average 30% more fresh fruit and vegetables than they would using a gift card for the same price at other major retailers. When you purchase a Grocer Gift Card for a friend, family member, colleague, or neighbour not only are you gifting that person the gift of fruit and veggies, but you also support food security in our community, and support our mission at TCG.
Keep an eye out for when this will be available!