Melbourne families are struggling to put food on the table. Eastern suburbs locals are opening up their garages to help.

More than half of Melbourne’s families found it harder to afford food in April.

For those living in Manningham, a new food relief program partnering with Templestowe’s CareNet food insecurity support charity is helping to cut down on grocery bills and get high-quality food on the table. 

✂️ Equal shares: The Templestowe service recently opened as a Box Divvy hub – a support model where community groups, families and individuals receive food from local wholesalers and farmers and then welcome up to 55 families to collect their orders on a set day each week.

• Husband and wife Jayne Travers-Drapes and Anton van den Berg founded Box Divvy in 2018 to improve local access to food.

• Six years on, the model offers fresh produce and pantry items between 30 and 40 percent cheaper than major supermarkets across more than 350 hubs across the country.

🪙 What is “food insecurity”? Food insecurity occurs when people lack reliable access to food due to economic hardship, and can cause understandable worry and, in some cases, cause people to go days without eating.

• A study from the University of Melbourne and Murdoch Children's Research Institute found over 55 percent of Melbourne’s 2023 population lived in neighbourhoods without a healthy food outlet within 500 metres.

• A Foodbank study showed 53 percent of Australians found it harder to put food on the table in April, up nine percent from March.

🤝 Local support: The chief executive of Templestowe’s food relief charity CareNet, Kellie Wishart, said Box Divvy helps the service provide affordable and quality food to Manningham families.

• 🗣️ “People are making trade-offs every week, and many feel priced out of fresh food,” said Wishart.

⏭️ What’s next? Travers-Drapes said they are opening three new hubs which will operate weekly in Victoria, but more government support would help diversify the system away from big supermarkets and reach a larger area.

• 🗣️ “Most of our food supply is highly centralised and fragile,” she said. “I personally believe that supermarkets will be a thing of the past in 10 years.”