Since commencing in Geelong in 2010, delivering to 11 Geelong based agencies, SecondBite is now sourcing and redistributing 20,000kg of a wide variety of quality fresh food, every month, for 68 agencies, refuges, soup vans and school breakfast programs across Geelong and surrounding region.
In the 2013/14 year, in Geelong, SecondBite redistributed 192,000 kg of quality surplus fresh food from markets, growers and retailers, enabling 68 recipient agencies to provide 384,000 nourishing meals to people in need in Geelong.
SecondBite’s focus has always been on the individuals and families needing increased access to affordable healthy fresh food. The link between poor health and poverty is startling. Working closely with community organisations supporting the most vulnerable individuals and families, SecondBite is committed to improving the poor nutrition suffered by disadvantaged Australians, which exacerbates their vulnerability to illness and lower levels of health and wellbeing.
SecondBite targets its fresh food redistribution service to areas having the greatest level of need and has invested in evidence based research and developed specialist nutrition programs to increase knowledge, skills and access to affordable fresh food, to help individuals and families and reduce their dependence on emergency food relief and unhealthy takeaway food.
The impact of SecondBite’s services in the Geelong region is best described by some of their recipient agencies:
“We get a wonderful range of fresh food from SecondBite to support our school’s Breakfast Club. Through SecondBite’s support, our Breakfast Club has offered the opportunity for students to socially connect each morning as well providing them with their food for the day. The sense of belonging and connectedness has been greatly improved for a number of our students and this has been noticed by our entire school community. We cannot emphasis enough the positive impacts the support of SecondBite to our Breakfast Club has had for our entire school community.” North Geelong Secondary College
“SecondBite has been a fantastic asset to the Salvoconnect’s services we can offer our clients. Ben and team deliver the food to us which helps us continue to deliver our services to clients and not worry about having to go anywhere to collect the food” Salvoconnect Belmont