Our projects

A Food Hub for the north of Moreland

Moreland City Council ’s Food System Strategy 2017 – 2020 sets ambitious goals for creating a just and vibrant food system. 

One of the actions in the strategy to address food security is to complete a feasibility study in partnership with the Moreland community on establishing a community food hub / community food centre in the north of Moreland. The purpose of a Community Food Hub in this context is to increase access to quality food for marginalised communities while promoting social inclusion and empowerment. 

Open Food Network have partnered with Fair Share Fare to deliver this project for Moreland City Council. We will be talking with community members about their vision for a hub, and what impact they think it should have.

Shaped by the community

Our research into best-practice support for regional food system development has found that the greatest chance of success comes from supporting community members who are already active and engaged in developing their local food system. For this reason, we are partnering with Dr Jen Rae of Fair Share Fare, who is already embedded in this community. 

Jen Rae will lead the community consultation stage of this project, ensuring that a diverse cross-section of community are included in imagining what a food hub for the north of Moreland could look like, and what needs it should serve.

If you’d like to get in touch with Jen Rae about this stage of the project, please email her.

A strong plan for the food hub’s implementation

Based on the community’s input, Open Food Network will determine what a feasible food hub in Melbourne’s north could look like. We will suggest next steps for the project, and then refine the hub concepts with input from community and from others in our network who are already running food hubs. 

The Open Food Network team of Jen Sheridan, Kirsten Larsen, Serenity Hill, and Danielle Moorhead will undertake this stage of the project. Continuing to work with key community stakeholders, we will develop an implementation plan for the food hub’s first steps, undertaking a start-up phase informed by Lean methodology.

Our experience offering community food enterprise mentoring and incubation services has given us extensive insight into best-practice for new enterprises. We have found that using a Lean approach has greater impact in early stages than a grand masterplan for a long time-frame. It helps enterprises reduce risk, make smart, data-driven decisions and learn more about successful intervention in their context through interaction with it.

Our implementation plan will include recommendations on how to approach this start-up phase, and the funding needed to conduct lean experiments. We will suggest a project design that facilitates a collective impact approach, and provide direction on how to set it up to achieve this.

We will also work with Council and community to develop an impact framework, so that the project can be measured against what matters to the local community.

If you’d like to get in touch with us about this stage of the project, please email Jen Sheridan.

This Community Food Hub feasibility is a project of the Moreland Food System Strategy 2017-2020 and is funded by Moreland City Council.