As grocery costs continue to put pressure on household budgets, Victorian families from Melbourne’s inner and outer suburbs to regional communities are increasingly looking for ways to access affordable fresh food without compromising on quality or their desire to support local growers. In its first year in Victoria, community food network Box Divvy has sourced fresh produce from around 85 growers, more than 90 per cent of them Victorian. The organisation’s Victorian price comparisons have found fresh fruit and vegetables to be around 35 to 38 per cent cheaper than comparable produce at major supermarkets. In the small Gippsland town of Lang Lang, local resident Josique Armoogum started a Box Divvy Hub in May after looking for a way to give her family and community better access to quality fresh produce. With just one supermarket in town, Ms Armoogum said the choice and freshness of produce available locally could be limited. Four months later, her Hub has 38 families as members.
“Thirty-eight families don’t have to go out of town to get fresh produce anymore. Lang Lang is a small town with only one local supermarket, so Box Divvy has been life changing for us,” Ms Armoogum commented. “We definitely don’t visit the fruit and vegetable aisles when we do our weekly shopping now. Our members say the fruit and vegetables last longer, and every week we’re discovering new recipes and sharing ideas about what to cook.”
The Hub has also become a meeting point for local families, with members swapping recipes, sharing excess produce from their gardens and children joining their parents on collection day. Ms Armoogum has since encouraged two members to become Hubsters, contributing to a second Hub opening in Lang Lang and another in nearby Poowong. For Ms Armoogum, who is now in remission after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2022, access to fresh food also has personal significance.
“The last four years have been extremely hard. Now, what is on my plate and what I’m feeding my body is a priority. Ninety per cent of my meals are home cooked and the one thing I won’t trade is fresh produce.” Ms Armoogum commented.
Box Divvy co-founder Jayne Travers-Drapes said one of the things that stood out when the network launched in Victoria was how conscious Victorians already were about where their food came from, how it was produced and who they were supporting.
“Food co-ops, farmers’ markets and buying direct from producers weren’t new concepts here. What Box Divvy has done is give more people a practical and affordable way to shop according to those values as part of their everyday lives,” Ms Travers-Drapes commented “People want to support local growers and reduce unnecessary packaging, but they also need to feed their families affordably. The growth we’ve seen over the past year suggests those things don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”
Box Divvy operates through neighbourhood Hubs run by local residents known as Hubsters. Each week, members choose what they want from the available range online, with their individual orders delivered to their local Hub for collection. The community-based model aims to make quality food more affordable while supporting local growers and suppliers, reducing unnecessary packaging and food waste, and creating connections between neighbours. Box Divvy’s growing Victorian network is also being used as part of research into whether community-based approaches can help people eat more vegetables. They have partnered with Deakin University’s Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition on the Veg4Me Plus One Serve Study, which will provide vegetable prescriptions to participants and explore whether this can help people increase their vegetable intake.
Associate Professor Katherine Livingstone at Deakin University, said Box Divvy’s community-based model made it a valuable partner for their research.
“Most Australians know vegetables are good for them, but knowing what we should eat and being able to put that into practice are two different things. Cost, convenience and access can all be barriers. The Veg4Me Plus One Serve Study will provide people with a weekly vegetable box, and access to the Veg4Me app, to help them add an extra serve of vegetables to their day.” Assoc Prof Livingstone commented
“We want a practical way for rural and regional communities to access fresh produce through their local community. Box Divvy’s network gives us an opportunity to explore that in a real-world setting, where people are already coming together around fresh food.”
A further 14 Victorian Box Divvy Hubs are currently in development, with four expected to open in the coming weeks. For more information. Find out more about the Hort Innovation-funded Veg4Me Plus One Serve Study