TONY EASTLEY: It's hard to imagine that there are a lot of Australians worrying every day about where their next meal is going to come from.
This year's Hunger Report has been released, showing one in six Australians experienced exactly that over the past year.
The nation's largest food relief organisation, Foodbank, says most welfare and community groups can't keep up with demand.
Rachael Brown visited one of Foodbank's warehouses in Melbourne.
VOX POP: So in front of us, what you can see there, all that comes from food drives or something from Coles or Safeway they've got enough or too much of.
RACHAEL BROWN: As volunteers at Foodbank's Yarraville warehouse in Melbourne's west are being given sorting instructions, Matt Prince walks me through the warehouse aisles heaving with food from corporate donations, manufacturers or produce not fit for export.
There are perishables, frozen and chilled goods, fruit and vegetables...
MATT PRINCE: So we go to the Melbourne markets three times a week and source anything they might have that's excess produce that they don't want to take back with them.
RACHAEL BROWN: And produce from a deal with big farming families.
MATT PRINCE: We're paying them a reasonable price to actually give us the produce that would usually go into landfill or you plough back into the ground because they can't sell it to large supermarkets because of size, shape, blemishes, those kinds of things.
So now we know at certain times of the year that we'll have carrots in the warehouse, we'll have pumpkins, we might have potatoes and tomatoes. Now agencies can kind of bank on that we'll have certain produce at certain times of year.
RACHAEL BROWN: This food is trucked out to welfare agencies and community groups, to help feed more than 644,000 people nationally.
MATT PRINCE: Low income families, pensioners, lots of children going hungry as well.
RACHAEL BROWN: I read the face of hunger is really changing.
MATT PRINCE: Yeah it definitely is. They're saying there's more Generation Ys gonna be affected by food insecurity now, but we've definitely seen over the last kind of 10 years a big change from that person that people traditionally thought was homeless person on the street to what it is now.
RACHAEL BROWN: Foodbank's marketing manager Paula Bantock says Australia's food insecurity is now at crisis point.
PAULA BANTOCK: One in six have experienced the need to call on food relief at least once. What's also scary about this number is 28 per cent are experiencing this on a regular basis.
RACHAEL BROWN: And the survey looked at what kind of implications that has emotionally, mentally, physically.
PAULA BANTOCK: The flow-on effects, yeah they're massive and they're never ending. So motivation, feeling outcast from society, feeling a loss of self esteem, obviously health and wellbeing.
RACHAEL BROWN: And despite this massive operation that's going on around us at the moment, it's still not meeting demand.
PAULA BANTOCK: No unfortunately not. We've also found in the survey that nationally, a number of charities are having to turn away people.
RACHAEL BROWN: To give you an example, despite this factory pumping out the equivalent of over 17 million meals for Victorians last year, relief agencies still have to turn away nearly 7,000 hungry adults and children each month.
PAULA BANTOCK: We're about 30 per cent behind on meeting the demand. What we ask for is our food donors and all the generous support from the manufacturing, farmers, primary producers, is that we increase donations and call on their support for that to try and meet that gap.
RACHAEL BROWN: Do we need to rethink the Australia deals with waste for example? What chefs or what supermarkets would consider waste?
RACHAEL BROWN: To be honest, in Australia, they've been very proactive in this area for the last 10, 20 years. Supermarkets are donating that food, there are other charities that collect that food; Frontline.
And now the fact that food insecurity is on people's radar there's even more reason why they're not actually wasting that food.
From our perspective it's a callout to the food industry. If they are running out stock that is close to best before date, close to use by date, we can absolutely use that product. Don't throw it away, we need it.
TONY EASTLEY: Paula Bantock from Foodbank Victoria ending that report from Rachael Brown.
UNSUBBED
PM
1.6.16
FOOD SECURITY 3.5
TONY EASTLEY: It's hard to imagine that there are a lot of Australians worrying everyday about where their next meal is coming from.
This year's Hunger Report has been released, showing one in six Australians experienced exactly that over the past year.
The nation's largest food relief organisation, Foodbank, says most welfare and community groups can't keep up with demand.
Rachael Brown visited one of Foodbank's warehouses in Melbourne.
VOX POP: So in front of us what you can see there, all that comes from food drives or something from Coles or Safeway they've got enough or too much of.
RACHAEL BROWN: As volunteers at Foodbank's Yarraville warehouse in Melbourne's west are being given sorting instructions, Matt Prince walks me through the warhouse aisles heaving with food from corporate donations, manufacturers or produce not fit for export.
There are perishables, frozen and chilled goods, fruit and vegetables.
MATT PRINCE: So we go to the Melbourne markets three times a week and source anything they might have that's excess produce that they don't want to take back with them.
RACHAEL BROWN: And produce from a deal with big farming families.
MATT PRINCE: We're paying them a reasonable price to actually give us the produce that would usually go into landfill or you plough back into the ground because they can't sell it to large supermarkets because of size, shape, blemishes, those kinds of things. So now we know at certain times of the year that we'll have carrots in the warehouse, we'll have pumpkins, we might have potatoes and tomatoes. Now agencies can kind of bank on that we'll have certain produce at certain times of year.
RACHAEL BROWN: This food is trucked out to welfare agencies and community groups, to help feed more than 644 thousand people nationally.
MATT PRINCE: Low income families, pensioners, lots of children going hungry as well.
RACHAEL BROWN: I read the face of hunger is really changing.
MATT PRINCE: Yeah it definitely is. They're saying there's more Generation Ys gonna be affected by food insecurity now, but we've definitely seen over the last ten years a big change from that person that people traditionally thought was homeless person on the street to what it is now.
RACHAEL BROWN: Foodbank's marketing manager, Paula Bantock, says Australia's food insecurity is now at crisis point.
PAULA BANTOCK: One in six have experienced the need to call on food relief at least once. What's also scary about this number is 28% are experiencing this on a regular basis.
RACHAEL BROWN: And the survey looked at what kind of implications that has emotionally, mentally, physically.
PAULA BANTOCK: The flow on effects yeah they're massive and they're never ending. So motivation, feeling outcast from society, feeling a loss of self esteem, obviously health and wellbeing.
RACHAEL BROWN: And despite this massive operation that's going on around us at the moment, it's still not meeting demand.
PAULA BANTOCK: No unfortunately not. We've also found in the survey that nationally a number of charities are having to turn away people.
RACHAEL BROWN: To give you an example, despite this factory pumping out the equivalent of over seventeen million meals for Victorians last year, food relief agencies still have to turn away nearly seven thousand hungry adults and children each month.
PAULA BANTOCK: We're about thirty per cent behind on meeting the demand. What we ask for is our food donors and all the generous support from the manufacturing, farmers, primary producers, is that we increase donations and call on their support for that to try and meet that gap.
RACHAEL BROWN: Do we need to rethink the Australia deals with waste for example? What chefs or what supermarkets would consider waste?
RACHAEL BROWN: To be honest, in Australia, they've been very proactive in this area for the last ten/twenty years. Supermarkets are donating that food, there are other charities that collect that food, Frontline, and now the fact that food insecurity is on people's radar there's even more reason why they're not actually wasting that food. From our perspective it's a callout to the food indstury. If they are running out stock that is close to best before date, close to use by date, we can absolutely use that product. Don't throw it away, we need it.
TONY EASTLEY: Paula Bantock from Foodbank Victoria ending that report from Rachael Brown.
The full story...
Food insecurity at crisis levels
Rachael Brown reported this story on Wednesday, June 1, 2016 18:15:00
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