TEN years ago, it was just a dream.
Last week, world-renowned French architect Francois Tesniere opened the doors to a $24 million kitchen in Altona.
Trading as Community Chef, it will supply meals on wheels to 20 municipalities, including Brimbank, Hobsons Bay, Hume, Macedon Ranges, Melton and Moonee Valley.
Another 10 councils could come on board within the next 18 months.
Mr Tesniere, of 3bornes Architectes, said the kitchen had been a shared dream realised by many people.
"One year ago it was an open field with nothing on it. A year before [that] it was just some ideas on a paper. And 10 years before [that], it was just a dream.
"Normally, meals on wheels are not very popular worldwide because it costs a lot of money for the local government to produce the meals.
"In terms of logistics, it's quite painful, too. Politicians prefer to invest in theatre or swimming pools. In France, people might queue. They are on waiting lists to get meals on wheels. It's often like that in Europe."
The building's design has won international awards and been rated as one of the top five kitchen innovations alongside the microwave, ultrasonic washer, induction cooking and disposable packaging.
It received $9 million federal funding, $6 million from the state government, and $4.7 million in cash and in-kind support from councils. The rest was borrowed.
Hobsons Bay chief executive Bill Jaboor, who chairs the Community Chef board, said more councils were expected to join the conglomerate.
"We set a cut-off date so we could build the facility and get it all up and running with the shareholders that we've got and then we'll be going out and looking for more business," he said.
"Many other councils in metropolitan Melbourne, we hope, will be participating in the not-too-distant future."
The venture was expected to generate a profit within two to three years. Community Chef chief executive Hayden Raysmith said Surf Coast would pay the same cost for food transport as Brimbank.
"We've used what we call a 'postage stamp' model, which is that no matter where it goes, with the founding 20 councils, they will all be charged the same amount and that works out to be 40 cents a meal [for transport]," he said.
"And that will come down as we serve more municipalities."
Community Chef patron Gabriel Gate said the menu would feature about 200 dishes catering for diverse tastes and diets.
"Some people don't realise that if you are Italian and you have been eating your family food, when you get meals on wheels you don't really want to get an Anglo-Saxon meal because it's not you," he said.
"It's OK for us, the newer generation. We have Chinese one night, Italian one night. Once you get older you probably go back to your roots a bit more and will want familiar foods."
Maribyrnong's acting general manager of community wellbeing, Andrew Day, said the council would watch and wait.
"We have an existing meals on wheels provider who produces and delivers 1200 plated meals to our residents each week."
Community Chef will make about 1.5million meals a year. The first batch goes out on December 1.
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