The demand for ready-made meals for elderly and disabled residents has resulted in a promising new service in Warwick.
“Right now, people are relying on family members,” Jo Rathmell told The Town & Country Journal. In the absence of family, frozen grocery store food or three-minute noodles are common options.
Meals on Wheels no longer makes fresh meals in Warwick, a pattern that has been repeated in regional areas and even larger urban areas across Australia. The combination of a severe lack of volunteers since the end of the pandemic and steeply rising costs have meant closure for branches of the iconic operation. Commercial prepared meal companies, which have grown in number with the NDIS rollout, generally only service metro areas and may be limited to frozen fare. Many have received very ordinary reviews on quality and delivery.
In the Southern Downs, Meals and Wheels is still available in Stanthorpe where meals are produced in the hospital kitchen. A spokesperson for that organisation assures the Town & Country Journal that they are “very active.” Killarney, too, still has a Meals on Wheels service.
However, Ms Rathmell wants better for Warwick. She has been working as a qualified nurse in the aged care space for some time and it didn’t take her long to understand the gap in services. She is midway through getting a commercial kitchen approved by council and already has a waiting list of nearly 90 clients who need to eat healthy, balanced meals.
The commercial kitchen facilities will be located in an outbuilding of The Laurels, a gracious 1980 Queenslander on Locke Street
According to a material change of use development application lodged with the SDRC last month, the purpose of building a commercial kitchen is to facilitate a “Meals on Wheels type venture to provide hot and cold meals prepared and delivered to community members within the Warwick area.”
My Aged Care, DVA and NDIS participants will be the predominant clients. The application notes that meals will be delivered, and no clients will be attending the property. Commercial cooking would commence at 6 am and be delivered to the community around midday. No commercial cooking will take place outside of the hours of 6 to 5 pm weekdays so as not to cause a loss of amenity to the neighbourhood.
Jo expects a maximum of four employees which will be reviewed annually in coordination with council. As a mother of two teenagers, she already has a small crew to get started.
The application to install a commercial kitchen included professional design schemes and a detailed waste management plan. A Workplace Health and Safety Supervisor has been identified, and the company has adopted the Safe Food Pro software to professionally monitor and manage food. Complete risk assessments and reporting methods have been designed.
Clearly, Ms Rathmell is serious about the venture’s future. Beyond the cost of installing a commercial kitchen and doing the groundwork for a material change of use application, council charged Ms Rathmell $6,500 in fees. Council recorded the application as “properly made” on 6 January.
Jo is hoping that council will share her vision to make a difference to the elderly and the disabled in the shire because, right now, “a lot of people just don’t have access to nutritious meals.”
Council approval of the application is anticipated soon.
