A NEW partnership with Bendigo Marketplace will help Bendigo Foodshare volunteers get much needed food assistance out to families quicker.
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The marketplace announced a three-year partnership on Thursday that will see Bendigo Foodshare receive $50,000 annually to help its services.
Bendigo Foodshare chief executive Michelle Murphy said the partnership was well timed with demand for food assistance increasing over the course of the pandemic.
"We've got a couple 100 volunteers working each and every week driving our vans rescuing the food, sorting it back at our warehouse and then getting the food out to organisations and people in need. But it doesn't just magically happen.
"There are some costs involved with our operational overheads. And just like all of those families, our costs are going up as well. So to have an injection of funds of this nature is just immeasurable."
ISPT property investment manager Alistair Capp said he had wanted to work with Bendigo Foodshare since ISPT purchased the Bendigo Marketplace in 2014.
"We investigated for a long time, with Foodshare, the idea that we could provide them with some space to operate on our premises," he said. "That didn't come off but as a result, we still wanted to collaborate and support Foodshare's efforts because we think it's worthwhile.
"This is not just about us writing a check for Bendigo Foodshare, we want to collaborate with them and assist them in their efforts to collect and distribute food. Obviously, we sell a lot of food within Bendigo Marketplace and there's a lot of synergy between us and we're looking to leverage that."
Ms Murphy said Bendigo Foodshare distributes up to 900,000 kilograms of food each year.
"Speaking to the organisations we pass the food on to, they're telling us that numbers are getting close to doubling in terms of demand," she said. "One organisation they normally get about 30 families a day that we give food to and that's gone up to 50 families.
"It's pretty indicative of what's happening out there."
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