…..this week Fair Food turned on its website and began packing and delivering fruit and veg boxes to a handful of Food Hosts and customers around Melbourne (it looked something like the pic above but with more panicked expressions).For those of you who don’t know the Fair Food story it all really started back in the early 2000’s as a staff food co-op at CERES Environment Park. Each week on a wooden picnic table outside the CERES farm office a different staff member would take their turn to split cartons of potatoes, onions, lettuces, apples etc into individual boxes for the other staff.  Word got out and within a couple of years CERES was supplying 10 or so similar co-ops around the neighbourhood.   There was no plan it all sort of happened out of people’s desire to buy local food and build their community at the same time.

With the demand growing and having seen projects like The Good Food Box in Toronto and Food Connect in Brisbane it seemed like a good idea to share what we were doing not just in our neighbourhood but right across Melbourne. And so with the help of the Global Financial Crisis and a timely Jobs Fund Stimulus Grant from the Rudd Government – Fair Food was born.

Now, each week more than 1000 of us put our grocery money together to buy around 10 tonnes of food from local farmers, grocery makers and wholesalers which in turn has created 30 jobs at Fair Food, many for asylum seekers in desperate need of that first job in Australia.  And by the good graces of 70 households, community organisations and local businesses who volunteer their verandahs, offices and shops those groceries are stored where neighbours can collect and sometimes connect with each other.  The profits generated from this co-operative effort then help CERES trun the programs that teach children and adults how to better live on this planet.  And when you think we do this just by putting our money together each week to do our shopping, it’s really quite wonderful.Read more …