Community Grant – Frankie's Community Kitchen

Frankie's Community Kitchen is based in Warragul, Victoria, rescuing surplus food from local suppliers and turning it into nutritious meals for families and individuals across Gippsland and parts of South East Melbourne. Run almost entirely by volunteers - more than 100 of them - the kitchen produces around 2,500 meals a week, distributed through food relief groups across Baw Baw, Cardinia, Bass Coast, South Gippsland and the Latrobe Valley. 

As demand for food relief has grown, so has the pressure on the kitchen's small team to keep pace - with much of that pressure landing on vegetable prep, one of the most time- and labour-intensive parts of the job. 

Through the SilverChef Community Grant, Frankie's purchased a Robot Coupe CL50 Ultra, adding a second processor to run alongside their existing machine. 

"This machine has, and will continue to help us achieve our targets of feeding those who need it most” 

With two machines running side by side, the kitchen can now dice on one while slicing on the other, so different meal types can come together at once rather than one after another. 

"We can process twice as many veggies in half as much time,"  

That's no small thing for a kitchen turning out over 2,000 quiches and 300 soups every week from 150–200kg of donated vegetables. 

"Because we are able to process more vegetables, and cook more meals, I am now able to order more vegetables, so some of my volunteers would argue that it has increased their workload, but they are happy about that!" 

The equipment is also making the kitchen safer and more accessible for the volunteers who keep it running - many of whom are over 50, some new to hospitality altogether, and some with disabilities. Less manual chopping means less repetitive strain, and more volunteers get to be part of the actual cooking rather than spending an entire shift on prep. 

Looking ahead, the team expects the extra capacity to support further growth - reaching more community groups and a wider stretch of Gippsland and South East Melbourne. 

"We will be able to meet the demands of our community and the surrounding areas." 

SilverChef Community Grants program

The SilverChef Community Grants program supports groups and organisations serving disadvantaged or marginalised members of our community. 

You can read more about our Community Grants program here.

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