ROADBOSS travels across Victoria to document a paddock-to-plate journey with charity kitchen FareShare. From cutting celery in Boneo, to sharpening our knife skills at its kitchens in Abbotsford, then out on the road with drivers to deliver meals, we follow the food to find out what goes into running the nation’s largest charity kitchens
Just about every industry relies on road transport in one way or another, even the countless charities operating in the shadows to deliver food, clothes, services or shelter to those in need of a helping hand.
The largest of them, FareShare, operates the biggest charity kitchens in Australia, between its Melbourne and Brisbane sites.
But there’s a lot more to the operation than throwing ingredients in a pot and waiting for a kitchen timer to ding-a-ling when it’s ready. There’s also a sizable freight task attached.
Sharing is caring
The FareShare approach can be boiled down into a few elements, all heavily reliant on volunteers – which its own CEO started as – and donations.
It’s not just about feeding hungry tummies, as much as it is about getting nutritious food to people that are struggling.
Firstly, the charity rescues food using a fleet of refrigerated vans and light- and medium-duty trucks, collecting the donated ingredients from supermarkets, wholesalers, farms and anyone else willing to spare meat, eggs, dairy or produce that will otherwise rot in landfill.
In order to smooth out supply, the organisation also operates three of its own small farms around Melbourne.
Of course, the food needs to be cooked and packaged, which is where volunteers from all walks of life chop, mix, cook and laugh through shifts at FareShare’s commercial kitchens in Melbourne and Brisbane.
Volunteer drivers then deliver the packaged meals to frontline charities that distribute them to shelters, food banks, First Nations organisations and even natural disaster zones, bringing healthy, home-style food to the table for those in need of nourishment and the sense of hope that a hot meal can impart.
Then there’s the farmers, transport companies and corporate philanthropists that donate product, time and money to keep the wheels turning. It’s a team effort.
In order to smooth out supply, FareShare operates three small farms around Melbourne
The underlying focus at FareShare, Chief Executive Marcus Godhino points out, is on quality. Despite the impressive quantities of food the organisation puts out, it prioritises balanced, nutritious meals over high-calorie ‘fillers’.
“There’s food insecurity with hunger, and food insecurity without hunger, and more people have insecurity without hunger,” he explains.
“What that means is there are more people in Australia who are able to get food into their family’s tummies, but it’s not healthy food that’s going to make them physically and mentally thrive.
“It’s not just about feeding hungry tummies, as much as it is about getting nutritious food to people that are struggling.”
Despite the focus on quality over quantity, Marcus estimates FareShare has so far produced around 25 million meals since the charity kicked things off (on a much smaller scale) back in 2001.
When I started we were baking around 2,000 pies and sausage rolls a week, to now cooking 50,000 ready-to-eat meals.
“When I started we were baking around 2,000 pies and sausage rolls a week, to now cooking 50,000 ready-to-eat meals,” he tells us.
“So the real journey for me, since I was given the ridiculous title of CEO in 2007 when it was just a chef, a driver and me, is obviously scale.”
And to put the current scale of the FareShare operation into perspective, the kitchens now churn out 10,000 healthy meals a day, six days a week.
Stalks and stems
While much of the food rescued by FareShare comes from major supermarkets or distributors, a large chunk of the fresh produce used is donated by local farms. And not because they can’t sell it.
“It’s not seconds,” explains Paul Gazzola, one of three brothers running a fourth-generation celery and broccoli farm that donates its fresh produce to FareShare. “It’s probably slightly out of spec from our premium grade, but it’s not seconds by any means.”
A large chunk of the fresh produce used by FareShare is donated by local farms
The Gazzola brothers, Paul, Colin and Andrew, run two farms, around half an hour apart, growing broccoli, celery, Asian vegetables and lettuce, both located in Victoria’s stunning and clearly very fertile Mornington Peninsula.
Driving onto the main property at Somerville towering hedges line the winding driveway – as tall as the trailers of a B-double – before an impressive array of John Deere machinery becomes visible throughout the yard. The Gazzola’s bleed green, that’s for sure.
Colin gives us a tour of the celery farm, further south in Boneo, as workers cut the soup-hero by hand, moving at an impressive pace. The drizzle of rain is light, but it’s the kind that, across a day, soaks and chills you to the core.
“Rain, hail or shine, yep,” Colin tells us, when we ask if the weather is an issue. “These guys don’t mind. A lot of them have been with us for 10 or 20 years actually. I even had one guy that was an air force pilot from Vietnam. Couldn’t drive a tractor, but apparently he could fly a plane!”
ROADBOSS gets the lay of the land as Colin drives across two muddy rows that were brimming with celery just a day earlier, offering a stunning view of the rolling hills in the distance.
My Nonno and Nonna were very charitable people. I wish they could see what we’re doing today.
Around 40 tonnes of the Gazzola celery makes its way to the Epping Market for sale each week. This is where FareShare collects its weekly delivery. The brothers donate 20 tonnes of celery and 15 tonnes of broccoli to the charity each year, which is a favourite in the stir fries and stews it makes its way into. It doesn’t get much fresher than this.
The Gazzola brothers all share the same salt-of-the-earth passion for both farming and giving back. The donations aren’t a way of virtue signalling or promoting their business, though; they do it because it’s just who they are.
“It’s just a great cause,” Paul says. “I’m a firm believer that what they’re doing is getting to where it’s needed. With a lot of charities you donate money and product, and you wonder where it’s all going. But I know this product is getting to the people that really need it.”
It seems to run in the family too, because the brothers’ grandparents who started the farm 92 years ago had the same inclination towards giving back.
“My Nonno and Nonna, my dad’s parents, were very charitable people,” Paul says. “I wish they could see what we’re doing today, that would be fantastic. We’re still trying to make them proud and hope we’re getting there.”
The Gazzola brothers all share the same salt-of-the-earth passion for both farming and giving back
A stint in the kitchens was enough to sell Paul on the work FareShare does, which is why he’s not only donating produce but also pushes for more farms to step up and donate, in his side gig as chair of AusVeg Vic.
“We did a stint in the kitchen,” he says. “It really shows you what they’re dealing with as far as rescued produce to make these meals. What they do with this product is absolutely amazing, so once we saw what they were dealing with we thought we could do better than this, and as an industry we can too.”
While the major supermarkets and wholesalers want perfect, unblemished produce – the likes of which only represent a portion of what is grown on farms around Australia – organisations like FareShare offer farmers a chance to repurpose some of the imperfect produce.
“A lot of product that potentially doesn’t get sold on the market is because it doesn’t meet a certain specification,” Paul says.
“If you’re just chopping it up and making meals with it, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. It might have a bent stalk because of the way it’s grown, but no one knows the difference – they taste exactly the same.”
With a lot of charities you donate money and product, and you wonder where it’s all going. But I know this product is getting to the people that need it.
The brothers also happen to run a squeaky clean fleet of Kenworths, consisting of two K200s and a new 610 SAR. There were a couple of old Volvos on the farm too, relegated to water truck duties to keep dust levels down and general run arounds.
“We had a FH12 that we ran for 20 years, which did 1.3 million kilometres,” Paul tells.
“We went to Kenworths because my brothers like them and I don’t mind them either. It’s funny, the driver that drives the king cab K200 has been with us for over 25 years and he loved his FH Volvo. He always said, ‘if you buy a Kenworth, it comes with a new driver!’ Now, I can’t get him out of the Kenworth – it’s his truck for life.
“The drivers do look after them,” Paul adds. “The driver that’s been with us for 25-plus-years, Robert, he’s got the truck in the shed most Sundays washing it. The other driver, Shaun, is like that as well, they’ll always give them a wash before they park them up.”
Clearly dawdling, as we chat to the Gazzola brothers about their impressive family operation, we look across to see their driver, Shaun Lacey, tapping his watch to remind us we’re holding him up.
The Gazzolas run a squeaky clean fleet of Kenworths, consisting of two K200s and a new 610 SAR
“Time is money,” he says, matter of factly. We can’t argue with that.
Turns out Shaun actually worked for the Gazzola’s 28 years ago when he was a young fella, packing vegetables and operating the forklift out of the same shed he now backs the SAR into.
“After that I went on to drive for Baxters, GTR, ETR and others driving road trains, B-doubles and A-doubles, but finally ended up back here,” he says.
“This is the first job where I’ve been home every day in probably 20 years! I’m also a Kenworth man through and through, so I love driving these trucks.”
Shaun glides the SAR between the two farms without a second wasted, before he’s back out of the cab and onto the forklift to reload.
I really like that there’s a charity component to what I do. There should be more of it to be honest.
Once he loads the Kenworth B-double with fresh veg – around 30 tonnes of it – Shaun sets off for the Epping Markets. Time is money and Shaun isn’t wasting any of it.
“I really like that there’s a charity component to what I do,” he tells us before leaving. “There should be more of it to be honest.” And he’s off.
Cookin’ up a storm
After watching plenty of Gordon Ramsay’s colourful Kitchen Nightmares TV show on the way down to Victoria, we didn’t know what to expect in FareShare’s full-blown commercial kitchens. There wasn’t an ‘idiot sandwich’ to be seen, though – unless you count us.
Experienced chefs lead the charge, toque and all, preparing a range of soups, stir fries, casseroles and savoury pastries, with the help of their kind-spirited volunteer sous chefs, which are then blast-chilled and ready for delivery. The meals, that is, not the volunteers.
“Put this apron on and I’ll show you around,” says FareShare’s Manager of Volunteer Programs, Rosie Kelly, who has been at the charity for 14 years now. Rosie clearly runs a tight ship and remains impressively cool, calm and collected amidst the chaos of three kitchens running at full-swing.
FareShare operates three kitchen gardens and three large kitchens in Abbotsford with a warehouse
Rosie actually wound up joining FareShare after being retrenched from a HR role at Holden, deciding it was time to leave the automotive world behind to tackle the not-for-profit sector instead.
“When I arrived in 2010, we had 300 volunteers,” she tells us. “Now we have three kitchen gardens, the three new large kitchens in Abbotsford with a warehouse space, and around 700 volunteers.
“School children come through in the mornings and the corporate volunteers come in each afternoon, plus we have our regulars – some of whom have notched up 20 years of service.”
There’s no shortage of volunteers either, with a corporate roster that’s booked out until September (it’s mid-May at the time of our visit) and a long waiting list of people wanting to lend a hand.
We shadow some regular volunteers, working busily across two chopping stations. Pumpkin is among their most-hated vegetables, the volunteers tell us as they use their bodyweight to slice through the dense butternuts.
The cumulative impacts of natural disasters like the bushfires and the floods, then COVID-19 and now the cost-of-living crisis, people need the help.
“We like eggplants, they’re better, but they make the knives blunt,” one volunteer says. “Zucchinis are nice and easy,” another says. They talk, joke and laugh through the pro-bono chopping duties.
Giant stainless steel vats the size of bathtubs, capable of turning out 300 meals, bubble away against the back wall of the new kitchen. These high-tech commercial cookers mix and heat soups, casseroles and other large-batch recipes.
“Getting things like the amount of salt right is always tricky, because we’re cooking such large quantities,” says Emma James, one of the FareShare chefs in charge of crafting recipes out of the donated food.
“We had our meals studied by the George Institute for Global Health in Sydney last year, where they tested our meals. Overall, they’re some of the healthiest out but it allowed us to tweak things like the amount of salt we use.”
As the finished meals are vac-sealed at another station, with incredible production-line efficiency, we get an idea of just how much food leaves the kitchens. A warm soup on a chilly Melbourne evening, or a sizzling stir fry to wake the taste buds up – these are more than just frozen meals and the quantity produced has to be seen to be believed.
There’s no shortage of volunteers either, with a corporate roster that’s booked out until September
“The cumulative impacts of natural disasters like the bushfires and the floods, then COVID-19 and now the cost-of-living crisis, people need the help,” Rosie tells us. “The level of demand for our meals has never been greater.”
Precious cargo
The job of transporting the meals to frontline charities is an important one and FareShare logistics manager, Patrick Lanyon, couldn’t be a better man for the job. Like so many others at FareShare, his heart is in it.
“I started as a volunteer in the kitchen 10 years ago,” he tells us. “If you go through the employee list, a lot of us started that way and never left.”
Patrick met us at the charity’s Derrimut depot, where fresh produce, donated goods and finished meals are stored before being delivered.
“So we have six routes that are specifically dedicated to collecting from the Woolworths stores,” he tells us. “Then we have our big truck that does a daily supply run into the kitchen. So we have 15 vehicles all up.”
So we have six routes that are specifically dedicated to collecting from the Woolworths stores.
Today though, we are riding shotgun to deliver finished meals to St Vincent de Paul at Kensington, then onto Northpoint Centre at Tullamarine, before picking up fresh produce at FareShare’s own Baguley Farm.
The hustle and bustle when loading makes this feel less like a volunteer operation and more like a busy transport depot – which it is. But with volunteers comes a sense of calm, as day-to-day stress is alleviated, not piled on, by the act of giving back.
They do, however, work fast with no faffing about – aside from having to talk us through what they’re doing.
“I’ll pull up as we leave for you to take some photos, otherwise you can just follow us there,” says driver Phil Baker, a retired school teacher who’s been delivering for FareShare for around five years.
Today, he’s showing the ropes to the newest logistics recruit, Kailish Bajpai, who also volunteers in the kitchen but wants to try his hand behind the wheel.
FareShare has a fleet of 15 vehicles, including a truck that does a daily supply run into the kitchen
There was no watch tapping to hurry us up, but the duo held an admirable pace as they hit the road, stopping so we could photograph their Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van. A van which, unsurprisingly, wears more battle scars than a retired bull rider.
We suspect volunteers – not these ones, of course – are a little harder on the gear and the boss a little more forgiving than your typical transport operation. A few dents are a small price to pay.
Our last stop is at a little slice of heaven in Clayton South, tucked away amongst suburbia. The largest of FareShare’s own growing operations, Baguley Farm, sits on Les Baguley’s century-old flower farm where he’s carved out a 14,000-square-metre sandy-soiled oasis for the team to work with.
It mightn’t sound like much, but the talented green thumbs grow 120 tonnes of produce at Baguley Farm each year – or enough for around 400,000 meals. They love what they do, too.
“I first came here for a university excursion three years ago,” says Garden Program Manager at Baguley Farm, Isabel Menssink, who at the time was studying Horticulture at Melbourne University. “I loved it so much, I just had to work here.”
The reason we do this is because we want to rescue food, cook meals and give them to people that need them.
Isabel and her team of around 30 volunteers work the land, with a focus on regenerative farming to reinvigorate the decades-old soil, coordinating growing efforts with the FareShare kitchens to fill gaps in produce supply.
“They always want more of our eggplant,” she laughs. “But nothing beats fresh carrots straight out of the ground here – they’re my favourite.”
Before we finish talking, Phil is ready to keep moving. With no intention of holding him up, we depart Baguley Farm with a van full of fresh vegetables, grown by Isabel and her team with love and care.
“Logistics is quite satisfying, because at the end of the day if everything’s gone well it’s a great feeling,” Patrick tells us once back at the depot.
But critically, the reason why we all do this is because we want to try and rescue food, cook meals and give them to people that need them.”
A helping hand
As food inflation nears double digits, the economic climate hits the hundreds of thousands of homeless, displaced and struggling Australians hardest.
Retired school teacher Phil Baker has been delivering for FareShare for around five years
For the people eating the meals provided by FareShare, the term ‘food security’ means far more than frustration about the cost of eggs and milk, it’s all about when – and whether – their next meal might come.
If you’re ever in need of a hot meal and a sign that somebody has your back, charities like FareShare are working with farmers, transporters, chefs and delivery drivers – most of them generously volunteering their time, skills and resources – to help get you back on your feet.
Our journey feels less like a paddock-to-plate endeavour and more like a lesson in giving back. It’s a reminder to take less, give more and consider supporting a cause like FareShare.
Many hands make light work. It still rings true, although we now think ‘many generous hands make light work’ is more fitting.
