Goya Dmytryshchak
Altona’s meals-on-wheels kitchen serving more than 20 Victorian councils could be bought out by the state government due to multimillion dollar debt.
Community Chef was started in 2010 and has 16 council shareholders, including Brimbank, Hobsons Bay, Hume, Melton and Wyndham.
Other shareholders are Banyule, Bayside, Greater Dandenong, Darebin, Geelong, Manningham, Moonee Valley, Port Phillip, Stonnington, Surf Coast and Yarra councils.
The state government is remaining tight-lipped about its reported plans to buy the council-owned business for a “peppercorn” price to bail it out of a debt of more than $7 million.
Participating councils took out a loan and secured state and federal funding to establish the $24 million kitchen.
Community Chef soon moved beyond cooking meals for metropolitan councils to supplying aged care homes and hospitals.
It also supplies NDIS clients and last year won the contract to cater for the Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s public hospital.
A state government spokesperson on Wednesday would only give a one-line statement about reported plans to buy out Community Chef.
“The Department of Health and Human Services is examining a range of ways to boost capacity in our hospitals – including ensuring appropriate meal services are available,” the spokesperson said.
Community Chef chief executive Joe Ciccarone declined to comment on the proposed sale.
“We currently have 16 council shareholders but we provide meals to 21 councils,” he said.
“Over the journey, we’ve gone out to open markets and tenders.
“Clearly, our tenders comply with all legal requirements so we don’t get any advantage from our ownership structure.
“We’ve diversified into hospitals and aged care as well, but we find that there’s more and more demand as more and more people fall into disadvantage.
“Councils have moved out of the NDIS space in recent times so we’ve been there as a bit of a security net for them, ensuring that whilst it’s difficult for us to deliver directly to the door for individual NDIS clients, we’ve made it work to ensure no one misses out.”
Opposition health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier has called for a parliamentary inquiry into the proposed sale.
“The Andrews Government has many questions to answer including plans to buy Community Chef for the reported peppercorn amount of just $1,” she said.
Maribyrnong council’s community services director Clem Gillings said its contract with Community Chef expired this year.
“Maribyrnong City Council has had a contract in place with Community Chef since 2010 for the provision of prepared meals for our aged care clients, and we are in the final year of the current contract,” he said.
“Whilst we contract the provision of meals from Community Chef, Maribyrnong City Council is not a shareholder in the business.
“Our delivered meals service remains operational, and the changes to Community Chef should not impact the provision of meals for our clients under the current contract arrangement.”
Hobsons Bay council has been contacted for comment.
