Loaves and Fishes Tasmania delivers food and hope to locals doing it tough.
Our vision is for all Tasmanians to have access to enough affordable, safe, nutritious, tasty food.
We partner with many organisations to deliver food, reduce waste, provide employment and address the causes of food insecurity.
Loaves and Fishes Tasmania started in 2018 under an agreement with SecondBite to continue and expand on its Tasmanian emergency food relief work.
Aaron Kropf, (left) former Tasmanian State manager of SecondBite and a qualified chef, joined Loaves and Fishes Tasmania as general manager after meeting Devonport Chaplaincy CEO, Andrew Hillier, who was trying to source food for school breakfast programs established in the North-West.
Loaves and Fishes became a social enterprise charity under the banner of Devonport Chaplaincy Incorporated, a Public Benevolent Institution (PBI) registered with the Australian Charities and Not For Profit Commission. and offering tax deductibility for donations.
Aaron and Andrew saw the potential and need to start a Devonport kitchen that would produce ready-to-eat meals and offer training opportunities for at-risk youth, those with disabilities, and the unemployed.
They also saw the opportunity to help school children and their families by providing breakfast clubs state-wide as a means of chaplains and volunteers being able to connect with pupils and identify needs.
They established a Devonport kitchen capable of producing up to 10,000 meals a week, and developed a condiments range for sale online and through select retail outlets, as well as a catering business to help fund the emergency food relief work.
Loaves and Fishes Tasmania couldn’t exist without thousands of extraordinary food, financial and in-kind supporters, community agencies, Government, employment providers, ambassadors and generous donors and volunteers.
Each week we collect or receive 22,000 kg of food conservatively worth about $60,000. Food is donated from charity partners, supermarkets, farms and orchards, bakeries, the livestock industry, community, and school gardens and individuals.
Some partners such as Montrose Bay High School, Risdon Prison and Don College not only grow food, but make meals which they donate back to us for distribution to those in need.
