Foodbank bracing for a further rise in hunger

 

12th OCTOBER 2020: Foodbank, Australia’s leading food relief organisation, today reported that demand for food relief is up and believes it has not yet seen ‘peak hunger’ in the COVID-19 crisis.

The organisation today published a special edition of its annual Foodbank Hunger Report which revealed that, while government assistance measures such as JobSeeker and JobKeeper have provided much needed temporary relief, charities and food insecure Australians alike have an extreme sense of unease about the future as these measures are rolled back. More than one in three (35%) food insecure Australians receiving benefits don’t know how they will cope or expect they will not cope well at all.

Foodbank Australia CEO, Brianna Casey, said this year’s report emphasises that COVID-19 is having a profound effect on the food security of Australians. “The report highlights that, while need for food relief has become somewhat erratic and unpredictable, charities are reporting that overall demand is up by 47% and many of those now experiencing food insecurity (28%) have never before needed support,” Casey explained.

People seeking assistance at least once a week have more than doubled since last year (from 15% to 31%). “Those who were already struggling before coronavirus hit have been impacted more quickly and seriously than others as they have lower resilience against life’s turbulence,” Casey commented.

“In addition, we are seeing new groups reach out for help, in particular casual workers and international students. These individuals tend to be younger, so it’s not surprising that our report shows it’s Australia’s youth who are bearing the brunt of COVID-19. They are going without food more often than any other age group with 65% of food insecure Gen Z (aged 18-25) going hungry at least once a week compared to 25% of food insecure Baby Boomers (56-74) and 25% of Builders (75+).”

Now in its eighth year, the Foodbank Hunger Report brings together research between April and August undertaken with both charities and individuals experiencing food insecurity.

Key Statistics

  • Charities are seeing overall demand up by an average of 47%.
  • The proportion of food insecure Australians seeking food relief at least once a week has more than doubled since last year, from 15% to 31%.
  • When it comes to COVID-19 causing hunger in the community, young Australians are being hit the hardest. 65% of food insecure 18 to 25-year-olds are going without food at least once a week due to the pandemic.
  • More than a quarter (28%) of those experiencing food insecure had never faced it before the pandemic.
  • Charities are seeing significant numbers of two new groups in particular: casual employees and international students.
  • 43% of food insecure Australians are going a whole day a week without eating vs 30% in 2019.
  • 61% of food secure Australians have accessed food relief since COVID-19 hit but the other 40% have not reached out for the help they need. The most common barriers to accessing relief are embarrassment (33%), shame (30%) or thinking there might be others in greater need (33%).
  • While government assistance, such as JobKeeper and JobSeeker, have provided vital temporary relief for many, 62% say they are not receiving the assistance they need.
    • 37% say they need more than they’re getting,
    • 21% are ineligible for any additional support and
    • 4% have found it too difficult to apply
    • Post-COVID-19, almost 35% of food secure Australians don’t know how they will cope or expect they won’t cope at all when the additional government support is withdrawn.

Queensland braces for a further rise in hunger

12th OCTOBER 2020: Queensland’s largest hunger relief charity, Foodbank Queensland, today reported that demand for food relief is higher than ever recorded and warns it has not yet seen ‘peak hunger’ in the COVID-19 crisis.

Foodbank today published its annual Foodbank Hunger Report which revealed that, while government assistance measures, such as JobSeeker and JobKeeper, have provided much needed temporary relief, charities and Queenslanders in crisis have an extreme sense of unease about the future as these measures are rolled back.

Almost half (45%) of hungry Queenslanders who are receiving benefits do not know how they will cope or expect they will not cope well at all.

Foodbank Queensland CEO, Sara Harrup, said COVID-19 is having a profound effect on Queensland’s hunger crisis, with one third (33%) of those facing hunger in 2020 having never experienced it before.

“We are seeing the highest demand in our 25-year history, with more than 340,000 kilograms of essential food leaving our warehouse every week to help Queenslanders in need,” she said.

Ipswich Foodbarn Managing Director, Qim Kauwhata, said they are being forced to turn away more families every week than ever before due to increasing demand.

“Since COVID-19, our centre has been supplying food hampers to approximately 500 families every week, but are sadly, due to food shortage, sending away more than 300 families who need our support,” Qim said.

While need for food relief has become somewhat erratic and unpredictable, charities are reporting that overall demand is up by 47%.

Ms Harrup said the organisation is seeing new groups reach out for help, in particular casual workers and international students.

“These individuals tend to be younger, so it is not surprising that our report shows it’s our youth who are bearing the brunt of COVID-19. They are going without food more often than any other age group with 65% of food insecure individuals aged 18-25 going hungry at least once a week.”

In Queensland, people seeking assistance at least once a week has increased since last year (from 11% to 18%).

Now in its eighth year, the Foodbank Hunger Report brings together research between April and August 2020 undertaken with both charities and individuals experiencing a hunger crisis.

-ENDS-

Media enquiries

Zoe Templeton
Marketing & Communications Specialist
Foodbank Queensland
P: 07 3395 8422
E: zoe@foodbankqld.org.au

Bridging the gap between Breakfast Club and remote learning at Sebastapol Primary School

Located on the outskirts of Ballarat South, Sebastapol Primary School has been running Breakfast Clubs since the Program’s launch in 2016 and welcomed the addition of lunch and school holiday supply packs in Term 3, 2019.

Before COVID-19 restrictions were in place, the school welcomed local community members to help facilitate Breakfast Club on-campus.

Michelle Wilson, School Principal, says “before COVID-19 we were running Breakfast Club every morning at 8.30am with around 20 students attending each day. Our volunteers varied from day to day with people from the business, community, church, and government sectors. Our students loved the social aspect of Breakfast Club and valued the relationships with our volunteers.”

“Breakfast Club is also a part of our student leadership program. Dedicated students work closely with community volunteers in a range of tasks including unpacking, display, distribution, and the running of Breakfast Club. Some volunteers have remained mentors for students.”

Michelle says Breakfast Club also encourages positive relationships between students.

“The program promotes social cohesion among students as they share breakfast and conversations before class. It provides children with a caring human connection and helps us ensure they have adequate nutrition for learning throughout the day,” she says.

Around 95 per cent of the school’s students are now learning remotely, with around five students continuing to learn on-campus. While Breakfast Club has been postponed until on-site learning returns, Michelle says maintaining connection with the community is vital.

“Rather than running a Breakfast Club on-campus, we have been using Breakfast Club products and School Holiday Supplies to create food hampers for students and their families. We have been delivering food boxes to parents without a car or driver’s license, as well as holding a drive through collection service where families are invited to come along and collect a hamper to take home with them,” she says.

“The food packs have been able to assist families doing it tough. Many families have faced unemployment, uncertainty with casual roles or are still working full time while supporting their children through remote learning. Since remote learning came into place, we have been able to provide all of our 55 school families with food packs. For those students on-campus, we still host our Fruit Break program where they are invited to come along and enjoy fresh apples and oranges.”

Michelle says the food boxes offer a variety of products including fresh fruit, long life milk, cereal and other essentials required for a balanced diet. She says the School Holiday Supply packs have been a helpful addition to the Breakfast Club products on offer.

“Food insecurity is a real issue in our community, and we are so pleased to have an extensive range of food items available to us. We plan to continue ordering the school holiday packs and checking in on families who have requested additional support and are experiencing food insecurity during COVID-19. Some of our parents have been too anxious to go to the supermarket in fear of falling ill,” Michelle says.

“We look forward to welcoming the students back to campus. We hope to host a big family breakfast as part of our extended wellbeing initiatives when things get back to normal.”

Read more School Breakfast Club stories

Feed Me Bellarine

Feed Me – Bellarine, Geelong & Surf Coast are one of 533 charity partners we assist across the state of Victoria. Utilising food and groceries provided by Foodbank Victoria, the hard-working and compassionate team offer a friendly space for struggling folks in the Geelong, Bellarine and Surf Coast region to not only collect quality food and healthy take-away meals, but also to connect with the community.

Meet our Charity Partneres

Celebrating 8 Years of Farms to Families

We’re thrilled to be celebrating the eighth year of our Farms to Families Market! Since the program’s launch, the market has enabled us to provide almost 300,000 kilograms of healthy  fresh produce to more than 15,000 families in regional Victoria.

Fighting Food Waste with Repurpose It

We are excited to announce our partnership with Repurpose It, an organisation who champions sustainability and believes “all waste can be converted into valuable resources”.

There is some food that even we can’t use, and as part of a new strategic project, Repurpose It will take our packaged perishable food and turn it into soil and renewable energy.

We are totally committed to feeding those in need and reducing food waste, and with the help of Repurpose It, we are one step closer. Repurpose It have also generously committed to providing one million meals for those doing it tough.

Expiry and Distribution – A Quick Explainer

Foodbank Victoria receives a wide variety of food and grocery products from our donors. Many of our products come to us because they are close to the end of their shelf life, and we work hard to ensure that those products are supplied to our agency partners as quickly as possible.

Under Australian (and NZ) Food Safety Standards, there are two main types of expiry dates – ‘Best Before’ and ‘Use By’. Most food products you will see at Foodbank Victoria and on your supermarket shelves use one of these formats.

Use By Date (UBD)

This is a mark of product safety. You should not supply or consume foods after their Use By Date, and it is illegal to sell a product after its Use By has passed without an official shelf life extension from the product manufacturer. In some cases, shelf life can be extended by freezing a product before its Use By Date. Once thawed, it should be used immediately.

Best Before Date (BBD)

This is the most common format. Most packaged foods have a Best Before Date, which indicates the product’s quality up to that date. These products can be legally sold and safely consumed after their Best Before Date, although the quality will often begin to decline.

We have worked with over 2,000 food donors to develop the guidelines below. These are suggestions and not legal advice, but it is very similar to Foodbank Victoria’s own distribution guide.

Products with a Use By Date

Product Type
Suggestion for Charity Partner Issue Guide
Prepacked fresh meat, fish, and ready to eat meals Up to UBD, or in some cases may be hard frozen prior to UBD, and re-labelled accordingly
Other products with Use By expiry format Up to UBD

Products with a Best Before Date

Product Type
Suggestion for Charity Partner Issue Guide
Fresh / Chilled Products
Fresh bread BBD + up to 3 days
Eggs BBD + 2 weeks
Butter and butter blends BBD + 4 months
Margarine BBD + 4 months
Thickened cream BBD + 2 weeks
Sour cream, crème fraiche etc BBD + 4 weeks
Yoghurts and dips BBD + 2 weeks
Dairy desserts BBD + 2 weeks
Shredded cheese BBD + 4 weeks
Soft cheese (e.g. brie, camembert, blue) BBD + 4 weeks
Fresh cheese (e.g. feta, ricotta, cottage cheese) BBD + 4 weeks
Hard cheese (e.g. cheddar, edam) BBD + 2 months
Frozen Products
Frozen protein – uncooked BBD + 3 months
Frozen protein – cooked BBD + 6 months
All other frozen products BBD + 6 months
Shelf Stable / Ambient Products
Baby food Up to BBD
Dairy UHT Milk BBD + 8 weeks
Non-dairy UHT milk (e.g. soy, almond) BBD + 6 weeks
Pasta and rice BBD + 1 year
Dry cooking/baking ingredients (flour, sugar, salt,
herbs, powdered soup/meal base etc)		 BBD + 1 year
Cooking oils and preserved foods BBD + 1 year
Coffee and tea BBD + 1 year
Water (non-carbonated) BBD + 1 year
All other shelf stable products BBD + 6 months
Non-food Products
Personal and household cleaning products Expiry + 1 year
Pet care products (tinned /wet) BBD + 1 year
Pet care products (dry) BBD + 6 months
Pet care products (chilled) Up to expiry

For further information, please visit the Food Standards Australia & NZ website (www.foodstandards.gov.au) or get in touch with us directly.

Foodbank serving up Aussie pork to people in need

1st October 2020

Amid the social and economic disruptions caused by COVID-19 in recent months, Australia’s pork industry has been working with the country’s leading food relief organisation, Foodbank Australia, to support Australians struggling to put food on the table.

In a collaboration involving the Federal Government and Australian Pork Limited (APL), Foodbank Australia’s provision of protein to members of the community in need has been boosted by weekly deliveries from several pork wholesalers across the country.

More than a quarter of Australian pork is usually consumed in foodservice outlets, so when restaurants, pubs and clubs across the country were forced to closed earlier in the year, alternative markets had to be found.

APL CEO Margo Andrae said while the rise in homemade meals increased pork sales at butchers and supermarkets, the supply chain has still been under pressure in adjusting to COVID-19 restrictions.

“Australia’s weekly pork production is very consistent,” Ms Andrae said. “Even with retail sale increases, we were looking at ways to take pressure off of our processors and wholesalers to ensure the market stayed as stable as possible and producers had some certainty.”

“We approached the Federal Government to talk about ways we could turn a challenge into a positive because while we had surplus product, there are lots of people facing food insecurity.”

Emergency relief funding made available to Foodbank by Federal Minister for Families and Social Services Anne Ruston enabled the initiative to commence.

“Wholesalers Linley Valley Pork (WA), Holco (SA), Global Meats (Vic) Mastercut Meats (NSW) and Top Cut (Qld) have been pivotal in this wonderful initiative, providing pork to Foodbank at a significant discount to ensure the funding can be stretched as far as possible,” Ms Andrae said.

“We’re proud of the role our industry is playing in providing food security for those in need, but we’re also very grateful to Foodbank because the weekly supply arrangements have given processors and wholesalers added operational certainty for their businesses and employees.

“This has helped keep employees at our plants working and helped ensure producers could be confident they had a buyer.”

“Sadly, we’ve seen market failure in the US in recent months, where major pig processors have closed for extended periods. Thousands of pigs have been euthanised on-farm and prices have fallen dramatically, yet the need to feed Americans in-need has been more critical than ever. We are very grateful that by working together, we’ve avoided that sort of devastating scenario in Australia.”

Pork provided to Foodbank has included sausages, roasts, mince and forequarter chops, totalling 23,685 kilograms of made-to-order pork products over a three-and-a-half-month period. Based on this success, APL and industry wholesalers are looking at ways to continue working with Foodbank.

Foodbank Australia National Program Manager – Agriculture, Ms Jacqui Payne, explained how significant this supply has been to the Foodbank network nationally and to food relief recipients.

“We’re so grateful to APL and all the local wholesalers who have supported Foodbank through this period. Having a regular, reliable supply of a high-demand protein product such as pork takes the ‘surprise’ out of our supply chain and goes a long way in helping us end hunger in Australia.”

Melissa Parker from Mastercut Meats said the wholesaler, which has been supplying pork for distribution in NSW and the ACT, was keen to continue supporting Foodbank.

“As a family business, we’re always looking for ways to give back to the community,” Ms Parker said.

“This has been a fantastic opportunity to support Foodbank with supplies of premium Australian pork, helping those in need during this time of crisis, and also supporting our supply chain, our employees and Australian pork producers.”

A Helping hand for MUNGINDI as it’s only supermarket burns down

Friday 4th September, 2020 – A truckload of food  has just arrived at the small border community of Mungindi, which lost its only supermarket, butchery and clothing store in a freak fire on Tuesday night.

CEO of Foodbank NSW & ACT, Gerry Andersen says the former Mungindi RSL building has been flagged as the site for the temporary supermarket with the NSW Government committing $100,000 to set up the temporary grocery store.

Locals spent all day Thursday cleaning the building with the Foodbank produce and emergency hampers among the donations to arrive this morning.

“We were on the phones as soon as we heard the news. The community of Mungindi is suffering through drought, COVID-19 and now the recent fire.” 

“The Foodbank truck has arrived at Mungindi with 180 emergency food and 120 personal care hampers as well as mixed fresh produce to assist families and individuals during this time. We’re also working with Mungindi Central School to prepare and distribute lunch for their students.”

“It’s vital we do what we can to support those in need in these challenging times.  For the past 28 years Foodbank NSW & ACT (FBNA) has been sourcing and delivering food for hungry Australians. Our statistics show people living in rural and regional areas are 33% more likely to have experienced food insecurity.”

“Our thoughts are with all those affected. The Foodbank family will continue to assist with food relief as we know it takes time for communities to heal and rebuild.”  Mr Andersen said.

FBNA is the largest provider of food relief to charities around the state and territory. Right now, the demand for food relief is greater than ever before. The 2019 Foodbank Hunger Report has revealed more than one in five Australians (21%) have been in a situation where they have run out of food and have been unable to eat.

Meet Brian and Julie

It was like a hailstorm of embers, you couldn’t even see. And when the embers finished falling, everything was on fire.

Meet Brian and Julie, a Sarsfield couple who were impacted by the recent bushfire season.

As the fires peaked on the hills above their property, Brian made the difficult choice to stay and fight for his home. As the embers gathered speed and invaded his property, Brian battled the blaze all through the night, making heartbreaking choices about what to save and what to let burn. He lost his treasured garden, a tractor, his front staircase and there was severe damage to an exterior retainer wall – but he feels lucky that his home still stands.

“There’s no longer many trees around the place. All you can see is all the houses that have gone. It’s a bit confronting,” said Brian.

For a small town of 652 residents, more than 130 Sarsfield residents have been displaced by the recent fires. The fires impacted more than 70 percent of homes – 66 were lost.

To help make things a little easier, Brian and Julie have been accessing emergency food and water relief through ADRA Bairnsdale, one of Foodbank Victoria’s charity partners, as they join their neighbours on the long journey to recovery.

“The food relief really helps to take a load off your mind. We are still in the process of rebuilding the front of our home and it takes time.”
“The fight isn’t over, it’s going to take at least a year for the community of Sarsfield to recover,” Brian continued.

HELP PEOPLE LIKE BRIAN & JULIE