Australia’s major food banks are reporting a sharp increase in demand for emergency food relief, with soaring inflation and the end of pandemic support measures leaving many people struggling to afford basic groceries. St Vincent de Paul (Vinnies) in Victoria recently opened a new commercial kitchen in a Melbourne suburb to expand its soup van operation, which now runs nine vans after handing out 373,000 meals in the 2020-21 financial year—up from just 12,000 meals before the pandemic.
Melissa Walton, Vinnies Victoria’s soup van manager, said many first-time callers are now requesting food assistance. “Jobseeker has gone back to what it was before Covid, but everything else has gone up in the meantime. People just can’t afford to buy what they used to buy,” she said. The rise in demand reflects a broader trend: a Guardian Australia analysis of data from Foodbank, OzHarvest and SecondBite showed that the need for food relief was growing even before the Black Summer bushfires and has continued to accelerate.
OzHarvest founder Ronni Kahn reported that searches for food relief on its AskIzzy website have risen 22% in the past three months and are up 62% from pre-Covid levels. “The charities we support can always take more food to meet their community needs and we still have many charities on the waiting list,” she said, noting that new cohorts—people who have never needed food relief before—are now seeking help.
SecondBite chief executive Steve Clifford described the plight of a pensioner in Western Australia who had to reduce the amount of mince she buys each week and portion it into smaller segments to make it last. “Everyday Australians are feeling it in the way they’ve got to eke out the food that they’re getting,” he said. The organisation’s international student support program at Melbourne University has doubled its weekly food relief volume in the past six months.
Foodbank chief executive Brianna Casey said the cumulative effects of hardship, natural disasters and rising costs are leaving people more vulnerable than before the pandemic. The charities are lobbying the federal government for increased funding, particularly for natural disaster relief preparedness, as recovery from events like the Black Summer bushfires continues to strain resources.
