By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Dandenong-based I Cook Foods says it’s here to help as its former clients are sourcing Meals on Wheels from interstate entities.
Whitehorse and Ballarat councils were ceasing to provide Meals on Wheels from 1 July, leading to the Federal Government stepping in with a $2.2 million pilot program.
They will be respectively served more than 150,000 meals from Newcastle Meals on Wheels and Queensland Meals on Wheels.
On 4 April, ICF director Ian Cook rocked up to a community morning tea held by Bruce federal MP Julian Hill to offer his services.
He said a Dandenong-based kitchen could have easily been set up for the same sum as the $2.2 million pilot, providing fresh-cooked meals with a more diverse menu.
“I’m offering my expertise to start it up and make sure it’s done properly. I would happily donate my time to the people of Victoria and the State Government
“Why aren’t we doing more to get jobs in Dandenong?”
Whitehorse and Ballarat councils were among ICF’s customers until ICF was temporarily shut down by health authorities as part of an investigation into a hospital patient’s death in 2019.
ICF is sueing the Victorian Department of Health and City of Greater Dandenong over what it alleges was a wrongful shutdown.
The matter – notoriously known as ‘slug-gate over allegations of a food-safety inspector planting a slug on the factory floor – has been the subject of police and Parliamentary investigations.
No charges have been laid.
Mr Cook, who ran as an independent in Premier Daniel Andrews’s seat in the 2022 state election, said many former clients were disappointed with meals from ICF’s competitors.
“I strongly believe that market of vulnerable people is worse off for price and product.
“A lot of the councils are not necessarily happy with what they’re getting. They’re offered a four-to-five choice menu, we had an eight-choice menu.”
A Department of Health and Aged Care spokesperson said new entities were being planned to supply and deliver the Whitehorse and Ballarat services locally.
“A Meals on Wheels organisation was selected to deliver the model in Victoria due to the absence of Meals on Wheels organisations already delivering in those areas (outside of Local Councils).
“Supply and delivery will be local.”
The spokesperson said it was up to the new Meals on Wheels providers whether to engage Mr Cook’s services.
“This is up to the new Meals on Wheels provider to determine the best way to source food within the area, in line with regulatory requirements and adherence to the national meals guidelines.”
Whitehorse and Ballarat councils have announced that local volunteers would deliver the food, with the Meals on Wheels providers to set up local divisions.
Both councils are outsourcing their in-house aged-care support services, including food, in response to federal funding reforms.
A spokesperson for Mr Hill told Star Journal that he would review papers handed to him by Mr Cook in “due course”.
As for the morning tea, people were “pleased with the progress of the new government”, the spokesperson said.
“We would probably say that the key concerns were cost of living and aged care service provider quality and availability.
“There was a very mature understanding though about the need for the country to get inflation under control and the spending restraint being shown by the government, as most there are old enough to remember from decades ago what runaway inflation does to an economy and ordinary people.”
