In some remote WA towns, residents continue to pay double and sometimes triple the price for fresh produce.<\/p>\n
The small town of 850 people previously had only one grocery store. The nearest major supermarket is 530km away.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Yulella site manager Reece Anderson said the corporation established the “Vision” shop last year to sell fresh food, as well as clothes, furniture and bikes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said the outlet aimed to help locals struggling in the cost-of-living crisis.<\/p>\n
“I’ve been working with wholesalers, farmers just trying to get some fresh, cheap produce and trying to make it affordable for the community,” Mr Anderson said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Meekatharra has a population of less than 900 people. (ABC Midwest & Wheatbelt: Chloe Henville)<\/p>\n
“The Vision shop was just pretty much an outlet where people can get cheaper goods or affordable goods, as opposed to the current prices in town.”<\/p>\n
‘Click’ for 500km delivery<\/p>\n
Yulella has also started a weekly “click and collect” delivery service from a major supermarket 530km away in Geraldton.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Reece Anderson says the store provides options the town badly needs. (ABC Midwest & Wheatbelt: Chloe Henville)<\/p>\n
Mr Anderson said people could place their order at the Vision shop, which was then taken to the shop or to their door.<\/p>\n
The service is currently capped at 10 people, but Mr Anderson said demand was rapidly growing.<\/p>\n
“As we go on and we iron out the kinks, then [demand is] going to keep going up and up,” he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Yulella is planning on using produce to make fresh soup in the future. (ABC Midwest & Wheatbelt: Chloe Henville)<\/p>\n
Mr Anderson said there were plans to install a coolroom to increase storage capacity and a soup service to reduce waste.<\/p>\n
“Veggies that are close to being expired, [we’ll] make them into a soup [and] people can bring down their bowls and takeaway containers and fill them up,” he said.<\/p>\n
“That’s cutting costs in waste as well.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Bikes are among the goods for sale in the store. (ABC Midwest & Wheatbelt: Chloe Henville)<\/p>\n
Vulnerable groups hit hard<\/p>\n
Meekatharra Youth Focus service manager Paulette Anderson said access to affordable fresh produce was a constant problem for local families.<\/p>\n
“Food poverty is probably one of the biggest issues facing our families in Meekatharra,” she said.<\/p>\n
“Not being able to feed your family is a massive worry \u2026 and we know that food poverty has a direct relationship to poor mental health outcomes.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The shop sits on the main street. (ABC Midwest & Wheatbelt: Chloe Henville)<\/p>\n
She said the store was also the only place in town to buy household items.<\/p>\n
“I can’t just go and get a new kettle. I have to go online and order it and wait for it to get here,” Ms Anderson said.<\/p>\n
“Having the ability to be able to choose gives people a little bit of agency back.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Yulella Aboriginal Corporation has established a community store in Meekatharra, 750 kilometres north-east of Perth, to improve…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[116340,64,63,99,2610,7445,101701,77101,116343,116341,116342,116338,116339],"class_list":["post-181114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-aboriginal-corporations","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-cost-of-living","tag-food-security","tag-food-supply","tag-fresh-food","tag-meekatharra-vision-shop","tag-regional-food-insecurity","tag-remote-food-prices","tag-social-equity","tag-youth-support"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}