The Community Grocer

Smiling faces and fresh affordable produce at The Community Grocer's new Flemington market in Melbourne. The Grocer runs affordable fresh fruit and vegetable markets for communities at risk of food insecurity in Flemington, Fitzroy, Carlton and Pakenham. Its inclusive markets help solve physical and economic barriers to fresh food access by providing sustainable and dignified access to food at a price people can afford, while also connecting communities to combat social exclusion. 📍 Where: 100 Victoria Street, Flemington (at Debney Meadows Primary School, enter via Debneys Park) 🕰️ When: 8:30am-12:30pm Saturdays By establishing a hyper-local, inclusive and culturally responsive market that provides affordable or free access to a range of high-quality fruit and vegetables, the market both prevents and addresses food insecurity in a dignified way. Within the first few weeks of the market, they have sold or provided 400kg of fresh produce each week.  Georgia Savage | Grant Cooper | Peta Christensen | Dr Rebecca Lindberg | Roslyn Aikman | Leigh Powell | Kelly Durrant | Janine Woodside

On Saturday, we launched our Flemington Market, and the welcoming from the community was nothing short of superb! 🤩 We had such a brilliant time meeting you all and chatting about your favourite fruits and vegetables and how you’d like your new market to look. Thanks so much to everyone who came down on Saturday morning, and to our wonderful partners and funders who made this happen Bennelong Foundation, Collier Charitable Trust, Milford, Kensington Neighbourhood House, Debney Meadows Primary School and Moonee Valley City Council Matt Bills Liem Nguyen

It's been a while between posts but we have such GREAT news to share that we had to jump in to tell you... On Saturday 20 April 2024, we are launching a new weekly market in FLEMINGTON!!! You can find us at Debney Meadows Primary School at 100 Victoria St from 8:30AM-12:30PM with all our delicious and affordable fresh fruit and veggies. 🍉🥦 Thanks to our wonderful supporters at Bennelong Foundation, Collier Charitable Fund, Milford Community Connection Program, Kensington Neighbourhood House, and Moonee Valley City Council. We can't wait to see you all there! We're so excited that we're already planning an event to celebrate our first month at Flemington!🥳

2023 was a big year for The Community Grocer! We grew our markets, welcomed new team members, secured grant funding to enable several exciting projects and measured what were some pretty significant impacts on food insecurity and community. Check out Our 2023 Annual Report below for more detail about what we achieved in 2023 or head to the following link for a downloadable PDF https://lnkd.in/g6QY9c-E

We are REALLY excited to be recruiting a Sustainable Food Procurement Manager to support us to shape and refine the procurement strategies of our organisation, and deliver on a key project recently funded by the Lord Mayor's Charitable Foundation to build an equitable, resilient and sustainable fresh food supply network in Melbourne. This role has the potential to not only transform business as usual for our organisation, but to explore and provide sector wide solutions for making sustainably grown produce affordable for all. Check out our website for more information on the role: https://lnkd.in/gjaMbGJb

We conduct a social impact evaluation of our markets to check in and measure how we are going supporting our customers to access affordable, culturally relevant and high-quality produce in an engaging and inclusive environment. The results are in for 2023 and… 🥁 Across our 141 markets we sold over 21 tonnes of produce - that's 230,000 serves of fruits and vegetables! Community members were able to shop at our markets for over 140 different varieties or fruits and vegetables and 91% of customers said this produce was of 'excellent quality'. We did GREAT on price too - surrounding fresh food outlets are 56 percent more expensive than our markets. In 2023 we served some 7,100 community members, that's up to 210 customers a week! 98% of our customers felt more connected to the community and 72% consumed more fruit and vegetables as a result of shopping with us! In 2023, 11% of transactions were made using Grocer Gift Cards and 83% of these customers said shopping with these gift cards provided a greater variety of choice compared to emergency food relief. We are so proud that our markets have incredible reach and provide a meaningful food security solution for hundreds of Victorians every week. If you'd like to read more about our impact, head to our website using the link below. https://lnkd.in/g7BsQNJr

We provided a submission to the Inquiry into Food Security in Australia which has recently released their extensive report. We were glad to see acknowledgement of the growing issue of food insecurity in Australia (including a reference to The Community's Grocer submission which noted we are seeing more people than ever at our markets), alongside the mention of many different levers to improve equitable access to food. We can see the importance of our work across many of the chapters and recommendations. We loved reading the following recommendations: - the Australian Government appoint a National Food Council covering sectors including access to food - the Australian Government conducts surveys of household food insecurity every 3 years - as part of the development of a National Food Plan, the Australian Government... * develop community projects designed to improve localised food systems and food security * facilitate the development of supply networks aimed at local production, procurement, distribution and sale of fresh and nutritious food * acknowledge community stores as an essential community service https://lnkd.in/dQEn_V27

A wonderful piece from Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) Australia highlighting The Community Grocer markets and the important role they play in preventing and reducing food insecurity and creating community 💚💚💚 We love what we do and I'm glad that so many others will now have the chance to glimpse the magic of our markets through this article, which also captures and amplifies the voices and stories of our customers so beautifully 💚💚💚 https://lnkd.in/g-NZy78Z

Last week, we had the absolute pleasure of being part of the Bennelong Foundation Pitch In event in Melbourne. To a wonderful room of friendly supporters, we had the chance to pitch for funds to support a new market at the Flemington Public Housing Estate. It was a wonderful chance to tell our story, to share some okra and snake beans amongst friends and to meet some other incredible organisations like River Nile Learning Centre and Mzuri Dance ArtisTree! We’re looking forward to working together to create a meaningful impact on food security with Kensington Neighbourhood House in Flemington! Watch this space for more information on this exciting project 🍉 🥑 🍈 Thank you, thank you, thank you 💚 More info on the Pitch In Event here: https://lnkd.in/gHi9xHia