Charity

Grocer With A Heart offers $1 groceries while tackling food waste in South Australia

As the cost of living crisis looms, a community of volunteers are offering cheap groceries to those in need while tackling food waste.

In a time plagued by the cost of living crisis and environmental concerns, an open-handed community of volunteers in Brighton are offering cheap groceries to those in need while tackling food waste in South Australia at the same time.

Located at the Brighton Church of Christ on Sturt Road, Grocer With A Heart provide discounted food to their local community. The project was established five or six years ago when the community care centre lost its annual government funding. Prior to this, they’d been providing food vouchers valued between $20 and $50 from Coles or Foodbank to low-income earners and those living off Centrelink.

Finding themselves without this funding, a new innovative approach had to be arranged so the community could continue helping those in need. At that time, Christine Maunder, the manager of Grocer With A Heart, suggested they create their own supermarket and purchase surplus food in bulk. Christine approached the church to ask for additional facilities, and they were soon given space on the premises to begin their generous undertaking.

“It’s a little supermarket at the church that’s open to everybody. 95% of the food is bought in, and 5% gets donated. We’re totally run by volunteers, so we don’t have wages, but we have a small surcharge on our products to cover costs like electricity and running our food collection van.”

The need for affordable food has become one of the most pressing issues facing South Australians, and customers of Grocer with a Heart rely on their services to stretch their budgets, stopping there for basic items before heading to larger supermarkets for more specific produce.

Sustainability is also incredibly important to the initiative. In an attempt to tackle the food waste produced by larger supermarkets, Grocer With A Heart have three strategies for sourcing their groceries. They purchase surplus food from Foodbank, and Christine uses online websites to bid for food that has short best before dates.

“A lot of the products we get are just before the best before date. Depending on the product it can last a lot longer than the best before date. Otherwise would go to landfill.”

But the bulk of their food is sourced from five local Aldi supermarkets. Every weekend, the team will head out in their van to collect fruit and vegetables which would’ve otherwise been disposed of. In fact, the store often receives four van loads of fresh produce each week, saving it from waste and providing healthy food options for the community.

They’re also careful to ensure that inedible food is properly composted and cardboard packing is recycled. For their sustainable business practice, Grocer With A Heart won a Holdfast Bay Business Green Award in 2024, as well as a $50,000 grant from the South Australian Government to support food security.

Over the last 4 years, Christine has been tirelessly raising funds to build a new purpose-built grocery outlet.

“We’ve raised $350,000 from people who believe what we’re doing is helping the community. We got council approval to build a slightly larger fit for purpose building.”

Looking forward, Christine is hoping to have the new building finished by the end of 2025. They’ve recently been demolishing a handful of old shed’s on the church’s property, and hope this additional facility will provide extra support to customers and allow more of the community to access their services.

Plans for the new building include the installation of a commercial kitchen, display freezer and refrigerator cool rooms, as well as amenities for food and nutrition training. As construction progresses, Grocer With A Heart will also be expanding their services to include initiatives beyond groceries. One of these is hairdressing:

“We’re looking at getting local hairdressers to provide cheaper haircuts. It’s the same concept as the grocer but in terms of personal needs. We’ve been looking at the types of expensive services people need that we could provide, and hairdressing is one of them.”

Christine says the work is “very rewarding”, and speaks to customers who tell her they “couldn’t make their budget stretch without Grocer With A Heart”.

“Before Christmas, people were calling us a miracle and saying ‘We don’t know what we’d do without you’. To get that feedback is great, especially for the volunteers working during the week. It’s really quite hard work, moving and sorting product, restocking shelves, all the logistics of it.”

As the need for affordable food and sustainable business practices looms in South Australia, Grocer With A Heart are making a difference in their local community. You can find them at the Brighton Church of Christ on Sturt Road, Brighton.

WHAT: Grocer With A Heart

WHEN: Tuesday to Friday: 10am-12:30pm & 1:30pm-3:30pm | Saturday 10am-1pm

WHERE: 65 Sturt Rd, Brighton SA 5048

For more information, click here.

More News

To Top