Food Relief for 3.5M Australian Households

The Foodbank Hunger Report 2025 was released on 5 November 2025, revealing a confronting reality that one in three Australian households (3.5 million homes) experienced food insecurity in the past 12 months. What was once viewed as a fringe social issue is now firmly mainstream, affecting families, workers, renters, mortgage holders, single parents, and people we all know and interact with every day.

Behind the statistics are households quietly skipping meals, parents going without so their children can eat, and individuals juggling impossible decisions between rent, medication, and groceries.

The latest data paints a stark picture of how extensively food insecurity has spread:

• 48% of renting households experienced food insecurity.
• 67% of households including someone with disability or illness were food insecure, three quarters severely so.
• 68% of single-parent households are food insecure, nearly seven in ten.
• One in five households earning $91,000 or more struggled to afford food.
• People in regional communities (35%) are feeling the effects even more than those in metropolitan areas (32%).

The cost-of-living crisis remains the dominant pressure point. Families are making trade-offs no one should ever have to consider skipping meals, reducing portion sizes, or prioritising bills over groceries. Many say that even when food relief is available, they hesitate to seek help due to embarrassment or concern that others may be in greater need. Nearly 45% feel ashamed to ask, and 35% worry someone else is worse off.

This combination of rising need and reluctance to seek support compounds the strain on the system.

Food relief organisations are operating at capacity, with demand continuing to grow. Foodbank alone provides essential food and groceries to more than one million Australians every month, and works with 2,966 frontline charities and 18 Foodbank Hubs and Mobile Pantries nationally.

In 2024, Foodbank sourced 51 million kilograms of food and groceries the equivalent of 92 million meals. Of this, 35 million kg were donated, and 16 million kg had to be purchased due to persistent shortages. More than 30% of all food distributed goes to regional and rural communities. Schools are also increasingly reliant on food relief, with 3,649 schools receiving food for breakfast clubs, lunch programs, or holiday outreach.

Rising operational expenses from transport costs to bulk purchasing mean that securing nutritious, culturally appropriate food has never been more expensive. Yet every donation continues to have significant impact:

• $1 enables the distribution of $5.16 worth of food and groceries
• Every kilogram of food provided has an average retail value of $6.72

Despite Australia producing enough food to feed its population three times over, the nation wastes 7.6 million tonnes of food every year, 70% of which is edible. This waste represents enormous social, economic and environmental loss equivalent to 17.5 million tonnes of CO emissions annually. Foodbank’s food rescue efforts alone prevented 66.5 million kilograms of CO emissions in 2024.

One reason edible food continues to go to waste is the absence of a national incentive for producers to donate surplus. Under current tax settings, food donation is treated no differently from disposal effectively discouraging donation despite the community need.

Food insecurity is driven by the intersection of slow-growing wages, inflationary pressures, unaffordable housing, inadequate safety nets, and escalating climate impacts. The consequences are immediate and significant. Food relief organisations are doing everything within their capacity, but charity alone cannot resolve a structural crisis of this scale.

This moment requires clear policy action, coordinated national effort, and sustained investment across sectors.
Food relief is not a temporary fix it is a critical pillar of Australia’s social and economic infrastructure.

With more than a million Australians relying on food relief every month, the need for coordinated response grows more urgent. Foodbank continues to work with producers, manufacturers, retailers and governments to ensure essential food and groceries reach the households that rely on them.

Policy reform, community partnership, and philanthropic investment all help make food insecurity less entrenched and more solvable. Food relief is not just about meeting immediate need it offers families the stability required to recover and rebuild.

Food relief is one of the most efficient, high-impact ways to support Australians doing it tough. Every $1 donated helps create 2 nutritious meals, ensuring essential food reaches households that cannot afford it right now.

Your support strengthens a system millions rely on and helps ensure good food ends up where it should on the table.

Links:

• Foodbank Hunger Report 2025