Jordy Gastmeier is the warehouse manager at the Tauranga Foodbank. She sources food and her love of nutrition has driven her to join both local and national organisations on behalf of the foodbank.
Jordy Gastmeier wanted to make a difference when she started volunteering at Tauranga’s community foodbank.
Three years later, the volunteer-turned-warehouse manager has made a host of changes, and she’s focused on providing access to healthy, sustainable foods.
Gastmeier’s main role at the foodbank is to source food, and her interest in nutrition has driven her to join local and national organisations striving to provide healthy food to New Zealanders.
Jordy Gastmeier is the warehouse manager at the Tauranga Foodbank. Photo / Alex Cairns
“There has been a huge increase in the need for food this year due to the cost of living,” said Gastmeier, who says clients regularly collected food in their work uniforms.
Mana Kai Mana Ora is a network of more than 100 organisations and individuals in the Western Bay of Plenty striving to create a sustainable local food system so no one goes hungry.
Community gardens, open street pantries and public fruit tree orchards are some of the projects the group touches on during their monthly huis.
Co-ordinator Amy Board said 9 per cent of the Bay of Plenty region was not kai secure, which is “really indicative of a broken food system”.
Mana Kai Mana Ora co-ordinator Amy Board buying fresh fruit with her daughter.
She stressed how “growing your own kai really reduces the supermarket bill”, with community gardens a focus for the group.
This year, Gastmeier began working at the Bayfair community gardens every Tuesday to secure more fresh fruit and vegetables for the foodbank.
Utilising land, developing a garden plan and rotating crops are the ways Gastmeier and the gardens increase their reserves. The crops are now producing about 24 banana boxes of produce a week.
Jordy Gastmeier sources food, and her love of nutrition has driven her to join local and national organisations on behalf of the foodbank. Photo / Alex Cairns
Gastmeier is also part of the national Zero Hunger Initiative Kore Haikai, whichs aims to address the root causes of food-related poverty and move towards a food-secure Aotearoa.
They set the national standard of what grocery support an organisation like the foodbank should have.
“The good news is we were meeting the standard before it was even created,” said Gastmeier.
When Kore Haikai visited the foodbank, they were “impressed by how we do things and positive about our goals”.
The foodbank’s goal, said Gastmeier, was to be a mana-enhancing environment, despite the “many ways a foodbank could negatively affect a person’s spirit”.
“We try to give our clients as much choice as we can,” Gastmeier said.
Its 12-month food budget was spent in five months, and it needed to make changes to the types of food it purchased.
As a result, the foodbank has not been able to include snack foods for families such as two-minute noodles, muesli bars, chips or crackers as part of the average of 33 parcels sent out each day.
Cash donations are also welcomed, as they mean the foodbank can purchase items it needs when it needs them.
