The Illawarra Regional Food Hub – A Call to Action

Thank you for your interest in supporting the Illawarra Regional Food Hub. 

Rising food insecurity, a cost-of-living crisis, a fuel crisis and increasing operational pressure of emergency food (and other) relief services requires system-level coordination and cross-sector collaboration. Fragmented responses where community centres, schools and service providers are bearing the brunt of food relief with very few financial and human resources is unsustainable. 

• 61% of Illawarra Shoalhaven residents cite the cost of food as the biggest barrier to eating well 

• 38% of households are food insecure, skipping meals and eating less nutritious food 

• 52% of university students are emerging as an at risk group 

Healthy Cities Australia have been working with multiple foundation partners to explore the establishment of a Regional Food Hub to provide a centralised means of greater food storage, sorting, transport and logistics to streamline and scale the distribution of food across the region. 

Our Foundational Partners include: 

• Anglicare 

• Assist Shellharbour 

• Illawarra Shoalhaven Food Futures Taskforce 

• Lifeline South Coast 

• OzHarvest

• SecondBite

• Unanderra/Figtree Community Centre 

• Vinnies

• Warrawong Residents Forum 

• Wollongong Homeless Hub and Housing Services 

• Women Illawarra 

This is about the whole community coming together to move from crisis response to coordinated action. With shared infrastructure, shared responsibility and shared purpose, we can ease the pressure on frontline services and deliver better outcomes for everyone. Your involvement—whether through partnership, resources, expertise or advocacy—will help make the Illawarra Regional Food Hub a reality. 

We are looking forward to sharing with you how and why the idea of a Food Hub came about, what we have achieved so far, and the next steps required to make this a reality.