Every Saturday, our volunteers load freshly cooked meals into whatever vehicles they can borrow. Personal cars. Family vans. Whatever is available. The food is hot and nutritious when it leaves the kitchen — but between St Albans and the front door, there is a problem we can no longer ignore: there is no temperature control.

On Melbourne’s increasingly hot summer days, this is not just an operational inconvenience. It is a genuine food safety risk. And it is holding back everything we want to do for our community.

That is why acquiring a dedicated refrigerated delivery van is Om Bhandara’s single most important priority for 2026–27.

Our Current Situation

Right now, Om Bhandara delivers freshly cooked vegetarian meals to approximately 100 families across Melbourne’s western suburbs — once a week. Our volunteers are committed, our kitchen at 8 Charles Street, St Albans is fully equipped and registered, and our community partnerships with local food banks, grocery stores, and farmers keep ingredient costs low.

But we have around 20 families on a waiting list we cannot serve. And we are delivering on only one day per week, not because the need is limited to one day, but because our transport situation limits us.

Borrowed private vehicles mean:

• No cold chain — meals must be transported at ambient temperature with no temperature control from kitchen to doorstep
• No capacity for frozen meals or frozen staples — a significant limitation on the range and shelf-life of what we can provide
• Delivery cancellations or restrictions on hot days, when food safety risk in a non-refrigerated car is too high to accept
• A hard cap of approximately one delivery day per week, because we are limited to what volunteer vehicles can carry on a single run
• No ability to expand our geographic reach into Maribyrnong, Melton, Wyndham, and outer Melbourne LGAs where demand exists

What a Refrigerated Van Would Change

The vehicle we have in mind is a new Toyota HiAce with a purpose-built Thermaxx refrigerated fit-out, capable of cooling to –20°C. This is not an aspirational upgrade — it is the minimum infrastructure needed to deliver safely, legally, and at scale.

With the van, we would be able to:

• Maintain a proper cold chain from our commercial kitchen to every household we serve — meeting food safety requirements and Victorian healthy food relief guidelines
• Expand from one delivery day per week to three days per week, immediately clearing our waiting list and opening capacity for more families
• Introduce frozen meals and frozen staple packages for the first time, giving families food that lasts beyond a single meal
• Operate safely through summer — the period when hot-weather delivery restrictions currently force us to scale back
• Extend our reach across Brimbank, Maribyrnong, Melbourne, Melton, and Wyndham LGAs
• Reduce our per-meal delivery cost compared with the ad hoc vehicle arrangements we currently rely on

The Numbers

The total cost of the vehicle and refrigerated fit-out is $94,000, covering the HiAce base vehicle and Thermaxx refrigerated build ($89,000), stamp duty and on-road acquisition costs ($3,000), and professional Om Bhandara signage and vinyl wrap ($2,000).

We are seeking grant funding for this one-off capital purchase. All ongoing costs — registration, insurance, fuel, and servicing — will be met by Om Bhandara Ltd from our operating funds and ongoing donations.

To put this in perspective: hiring a refrigerated van at commercial rates would cost approximately $700 per week, or over $109,000 across three years. Buying our own vehicle breaks even at around 2.6 years and leaves us with an asset we own outright — with a five-year warranty on both the vehicle and the refrigerated fit-out.

The Timeline

We have already selected a supplier and obtained a quote. The build lead time on the refrigerated fit-out is six weeks. If funding is confirmed in September 2026, we expect to collect the completed vehicle in late October 2026 — ahead of the summer delivery period, when temperature-controlled transport is most critical.

Our first refrigerated delivery runs would commence in November 2026, with expanded three-day-per-week delivery through November and December 2026. Waitlisted families would be onboarded during this ramp-up period.

What This Means for Families

The families on our waiting list have been waiting. Some of them are migrants recently arrived in Australia with no income and no support network. Some are seniors who cannot easily leave home to access food assistance. Some are students whose part-time work has dried up and who have nowhere else to turn.

A refrigerated van will not solve every problem in the food relief system. But for these 20 families — and the many more we hope to reach across western Melbourne — it will mean the difference between receiving regular, safe, nutritious food relief and going without.

That is what this is about.

How You Can Support This

Om Bhandara Ltd is an ACNC-registered charity with Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) status. All donations of $2 or more are tax-deductible.

If you would like to support the refrigerated van acquisition — or our broader food relief operations — you can donate directly to:

Account name: OM Bhandara Ltd  |  BSB: 083-237  |  Account: 234-109-228

Email remittances to info@ombhandara.com to receive your tax-deductible receipt.

You can also share this post, tell a friend, or reach out to us if you work with a business or grant-making organisation that might be able to help.

Together, we can make sure the cold chain holds — from our kitchen to every family’s table.

— The Om Bhandara Ltd Team