Work has started on a new Western Australian warehouse facility for food relief agency Foodbank to help it provide food resources to the State's community sector.
The facility is located at Perth Airport and construction is due to be completed at the end of 2014. The new development is expected to be 6000m2 - four times larger than Foodbank’s current Perth facilities, with improved storage for ambient, fresh and frozen foods.
The purpose-built warehouse will also house a new commercial kitchen and educational facility to provide information and advice on nutrition and food security in the state.
Operating since 1994, Foodbank WA is a non-denominational organisation with warehouses in Perth, Albany, Bunbury, Geraldton, Peel and Kalgoorlie Boulder. The new location will serve as a hub for food security and nutrition awareness, providing food to welfare agencies across Western Australia via Foodbank’s network of five regional distribution centres.
Foodbank said the new warehouse had the support of some of Western Australia’s biggest organisations, including the State Government of Western Australia, Lotterywest, Perth Airport and BHP Billiton, the latter of which has committed $3.5 million to the new warehouse facility.
“We’re grateful to all our partners, whose contributions have made this new warehouse possible. Food security is a growing issue in Western Australia, so it is great to see these companies getting behind Foodbank WA to help us help those in need,” Greg Hebble, CEO of Foodbank WA, said.
“This new facility will allow us to do more to help those Western Australians relying on food welfare. The agencies we support are currently turning away as many as 16,000 people each month, because they don’t have enough food to meet demand. This larger facility will give us significantly more space to store food, which we can then distribute across the State."
Foodbank WA is the largest food relief charity in Western Australia. It currently provides food for 55,000 Western Australians each month through a network of welfare agency partners, providing the equivalent of 12,000 meals a day to people in hardship.
Foodbank WA is the largest food relief charity in Western Australia, and provides 12,000 meals a day to people in hardship.
