Right now, 38% of Illawarra and Shoalhaven households are struggling to put food on the table. At the same time, good food is being wasted because our system isn’t set up to get it where it’s needed most. More than 37 food relief and rescue organisations currently operate independently across the Illawarra, each managing limited resources, storage, and logistics. This fragmented system restricts their ability to meet growing demand and to efficiently capture surplus food, including fresh food, vegetables, fruit, meat, bread, and frozen foods, from local producers, retailers, and hospitality venues.
A Smarter, Fairer Way to Share Food
The Illawarra Regional Food Hub will become a central place where surplus food is collected, sorted, stored and redistributed to local food relief organisations.
Our mission is simple: good food should feed people, not landfills.
The Hub:
It’s undeniable that our region needs this facility.
To reach more people and prevent perfectly edible food from going to waste, we need to think differently about how we operate. Right now, we’re constrained by infrastructure – storage, chilled and frozen capacity, and reliable transport.
That transport piece is crucial. It’s the missing link that will allow us to operate at the scale our community deserves.
Food is being wasted. Families are going hungry. The system is stretched.
Across the Illawarra region:
The Food Hub fills this gap by providing shared infrastructure that individual organisations cannot afford to build alone.
If you’d like to be involved in this project, please send an email to our Food Hub Project Manager at melinda@healthycities.org.au. To help us get this project off the ground, you can be part of the solution by donating.
If you require immediate food relief, please view our Low Cost & Free Meals Directory to discover your nearest food relief service.
