A South Australian charity supplying schools with breakfast provisions for students has been approached to extend its program to include a dedicated lunch service.
Aid organisation Foodbank South Australia provides a breakfast program to about 500 schools across the state. Along with cereal, bread, spreads and milk, the food relief charity supplies fresh fruit for schools to place in classrooms and common areas.
Foodbank South Australia chief executive Greg Pattinson said there were increasing calls from schools using the service to extend its program to lunches, as increased living costs meant parents struggled to fill children's lunch boxes.
"In the past, schools had requested some extra bread or fruit and vegetables for the kids to eat," he said.
"The demand for our school breakfast programs has increased … and the schools that are already on the existing school program have asked for additional amounts of food, so that they can start providing lunches to the children who are going without."
Demand for breakfast club increases
Pastoral care worker at Mount Gambier North Primary School Meg Malseed runs the school's Breakfast Club with food provided by Mount Gambier's Foodbank.
The club has about 15 to 25 kids and operates three days a week.
Ms Molseed said she has also noticed an increase in the number of children using the service recently.
"There's been maybe a 10-per-cent increase," she said.
Parents battling financial insecurity
Katie* lives in the Limestone Coast, one of the state's most fertile and agriculturally productive regions.
Despite the abundance of food grown in the region, the working mother of three has struggled to pay for the family's essentials over the past 12 months.
"I feel embarrassed that we haven't been able to afford a basic shop … It's meant that I am just having toast for dinner or skipping meals so that [my children can] have what little we have to eat," she said.
Katie said that her financial situation has made her feel as though she was failing as a parent, and like many people struggling to make ends meet she has found it hard to talk about the difficulties she faced providing for her children.
"I've always believed it's my responsibility to make sure my kids are fed and looked after, no-one else's," she said.
"But over the past year, I've had to swallow my pride and accept help … I now also know I am not alone in my struggles."
Manufacturers feel financial squeeze
Across the sector, Australian food and grocery manufacturers have faced financial pressures that are beginning to be passed on to consumers at the supermarket shelves.
Australian Food and Grocery Council chief executive Tanya Barden said the costs had previously been absorbed by food manufacturers but that was no longer possible.
"There have also been significant costs to business as a result of COVID safety measures, domestic freight cost increases caused by weather disruptions, shortages of pallets and rises in the cost of packaging.
"There is no longer the ability for manufacturers to continue to absorb those increased costs."
Regional areas hit hardest
Mr Pattinson noted a disproportionate number of Australians in regional areas that needed Foodbank's assistance.
"There's been an increase [in demand for our services] across the whole state," he said.
"The Riverland is about 50-per-cent up on last year, Whyalla has almost doubled, Murray Bridge is about 60-per-cent up compared to last year, and Mount Gambier is about 30-per-cent up."
Mr Pattinson believed the disparity was due to the level of support services in regional and remote areas compared to metropolitan areas.
He said people from all demographics accessed the service.
"It's not necessarily people who are stereotypically in need of food assistance … who have got issues that prevent them from having a sustainable income," he said.
"And I've got to be honest, I don't think we've seen the end of it yet either."
Recently, while in the local supermarket aisle, Katie explained to her daughter why she couldn't buy the food item the child had chosen from the shelf.
"All I had was $6 in coins to my name," she said.
"I had to tell my daughter that we could only afford the bread that we came in for and in one of the hardest moments of being a parent, she turned to me and said: 'I'm so sick of being poor Mum'."
*Katie's name has been changed to protect her identity.
