By Derek Schlennstedt
Hills-based Montague Fresh has vowed to aid under-privileged Australians this autumn by donating one million jazz apples to national food rescue organisation, SecondBite.
On Monday 3 March Montague’s held a special harvest event in Launching Place where farmers and stakeholders assisted in harvesting the special supply of 1AJazz apples.
Together volunteers, farmers, locals and stakeholders harvested 27,000 kilograms of apples from 10am until 3pm.
In a bid to reduce the statistics of 731,300 children under the age of 15 living below the poverty line, Montague’s will also be donating 10c per kilogram of jazz apples purchased from Coles Supermarkets between 17 and 24 April to SecondBite.
A spokesperson for Montague, Alexis Lalios said there was a great turnout of pickers and altogether over 100 people were able to pick around 27,000kgs worth of apples.
“The idea was to just invite stakeholders, locals MPs and councillors to live a life in a grower’s shoes, and see what it’s like to harvest the jazz apples.”
“Over 27,000 kilograms were picked from only 100 volunteers, which is an amazing effort,” she said.
Montague’s will supply one million apples to SecondBite who will then redistribute these to third party community groups across Australia, such as the Salvation Army, Uniting Care and under-privileged primary schools.
Montague director and third-generation family member Scott Montague said it was a delight to be working with SecondBite in being able to give back to communities that need it most.
“As a family company, Montague’s is delighted to be part of this effort with SecondBite, providing apples for a valuable program that gives back to the communities in need”, Mr Montague said.
SecondBite exists to provide access to fresh, nutritious food for people in need across Australia and to date, has redistributed 32,359,427 kilograms of food across Australia, equating to over 64,000,000 meals.
Not much is more nutritious than apples and Montague’s will donate the largest amount of apples they have ever donated since 1948.
Invtied to the event was Agriculture Minister Jaala Pulford, Yarra Ranges Mayor Noel Cliff and Federal La Trobe MP, Jason Wood who also assisted in picking.
The 27,000 kilograms of jazz apples that were picked at Launching Place were used for an evening dinner that night at the Foothills Community Centre held at the Upwey Baptist Community Church, where the freshly harvested jazz apples were served to those in need.
Mayor Noel Cliff attended the dinner and credited Montague’s as being second to none when caring about the community.
“It went really well, there were at least 150 people and there was a smorgasbord of food for people to choose from.”
“Montague’s really are second to none they do so much for the community and really care about looking after those who have fallen on bad times,” Mr Cliff said.
