Demand for food relief soars as COVID, inflation and natural disasters pile pressure on the vulnerable

Vinnies Victoria soup van manager Melissa Walton at the charity’s new kitchen facility in Melbourne. She says demand for free meals has exploded since the start of the pandemic. Photograph: Christopher Hopkins/The Guardian

Last Wednesday, St Vincent de Paul opened a new kitchen in the inner Melbourne suburb of Kensington. Fitted inside two portable shipping containers, the commercial oven and cool room will be the new hub for the long-running charity’s soup van operation, which hands out hot meals to people in need.

“Part of the reason we needed to build the new facility was we had grown so much over Covid,” says Melissa Walton, Vinnies Victoria’s soup van manager. “Even now you’re seeing more and more people coming through. There are a lot of first time callers through the welfare assistance line too, and they’re calling and requesting food.”