Community
22 April, 2026
Food market well supported
FOOD flew off the shelves at Cobden Uniting Church during their first food rescue market, clearing out most staples and produce in their first half hour of opening.
The market was a joint venture between Camperdown and District Community House and Cobden Uniting Church as an extension of the food rescue markets which have already been running at the Camperdown Uniting Church.
While the Camperdown food rescue markets run every second month, the Cobden markets will be running on the alternate months to fill the gap.
The Cobden markets are supported by Cobden Uniting Church Op Shop joint manager Barbara Cowley and welfare officer Helen Perkins.
Camperdown and District Community House coordinator Emily Mercer said the reception to their first Cobden market had been “phenomenal”.
“You never really know how new things are going to land and I guess you worry – when Helen and I were setting up yesterday we were wondering if we were going to have to pack it all away,” she said.
“Most of the food had moved already at 10.20am when we’d only been open 20 minutes and the majority of stock was gone.
“We’ve had a great amount of donations from the community which Barb helped organise which was great.
“Barb did a call out about a week ago asking people if they had extra produce to bring it along and I think that’s a great addition.
“It creates that beautiful community feel to have people contributing, as well as taking goodies home.”
Ms Mercer said the market running at Cobden followed the success of the Camperdown markets.
“This initiative started as a partnership between the Camperdown Uniting Church and the Camperdown Community House a few years ago and it was when we were getting donations from the Camperdown Ritchies IGA surplus to what we could move through the food bank service,” she said.
“We set this up as a way to reduce food waste – there’s multiple tons of food that we’ve saved from landfill in the time we’ve been running and it’s been really successful in Camperdown.
“Now we’ve teamed up with Helen and Barb at the Uniting Church Op Shop and we’re hoping to expand this initiative across Corangamite, but Cobden is the first.
“We’re so lucky to be working with Helen and Barb, they’re really amazing.”
Ms Mercer said she hoped to see more support from local businesses moving forward.
“We’d really like to see more local food product donations from local businesses – that’s something that we’re going to be working to,” she said.
“Essentially, to keep this going and to sustain it and have it as a circular economic local initiative, we need a little bit more support from local businesses.
“We’re being supported by Western District Foodshare, they donate some fresh produce and some staple items.
“A majority of items were donated from the Corangamite Food Bank but we’re hoping to increase the local donations for the next market.”
Ms Mercer said she wanted to encourage anyone and everyone to come along to the markets, not just those who may be in need of food or welfare services.
“I should mention though that the food rescue market initiative is not a welfare program and it’s not a food relief program,” she said.
“We want to encourage anyone, even if they’re not in need of food relief, to come and participate.
“We want to reduce the stigma around accessing food in this way so that it’s not coming through that traditional service lens.
“We want to encourage people who want to contribute as well that they can, so if people feel uncomfortable just coming and receiving food items, they can bring along stuff from their own garden and they can share as well, so it’s a reciprocal thing.
“It’s been great to see the amount of fresh produce coming in from the local community.”
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