Mapping Food Insecurity and Food Relief in Australia

The Challenge

On any given day, over half a million Australian households experience food insecurity: inadequate access to nutritious food, inadequate supply of nutritious food, or the inappropriate use of food. This represents a serious health and welfare issue.

Unemployed people, single-parent households, low-income earners, rental households and young people are more susceptible to food insecurity. First Nations, culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) and socially-isolated people may also experience food insecurity at a higher rate.

To lessen the burden of food insecurity on the community, food rescue and relief organisations provide access to food relief. However, often food relief is not available in locations where it is most needed.

Therefore, tools are needed to show where food insecurity is prevalent in Australia and to provide a sector-wide comprehensive picture of food relief supply and demand, including unserved and underserved areas.

The Response

We supported our partners in the food relief sector to develop a comprehensive map of the incidence and depth of food insecurity in Australia, and the provision of food relief within the community.

The map is displayed as an interactive dashboard that the public can access online. The data displayed in the map is updated regularly.

The map enables the food relief sector to target overlooked populations and areas with unmet demand by informing their strategic and operational planning. It also provides effectiveness measures for the relief sector and helps enhance public understanding of food insecurity.

Who Can Use the Hunger Map?

• Food relief agencies
• Non-government organisations 
• Government agencies 
• Researchers 
• Industry
• Members of the public

“ARDC really helped us with being structured and disciplined about the development of the project. Our commitment with ARDC firmed it up and gave us targets.”

“It helped to build partnerships with OzHarvest and SecondBite, which would not have eventuated if we had been waiting on them to commit money to it.”

“Without the ARDC support, the Hunger Map might have withered on the vine. We might not have been able to go that next step of being able to add the other food relief organisations to get the full sector data/picture. I don’t know where we would have gone.”

Sarah Pennell, General Manager of Research & Policy, Foodbank Australia.

The Partners

• Foodbank Australia
• ARDC
• OzHarvest
• SecondBite
• The Art of More
• Ipsos

Outcomes

Visit Foodbank Australia’s Hunger Map.

The project has:

• developed a map of the incidence and depth of food insecurity in Australia, incorporating food relief distribution data from Foodbank Australia, OzHarvest and SecondBite
• conducted a targeted literature review in partnership with Ipsos, a global market research and consulting firm, to help establish distinct modelling for First Nations Peoples. The review provided insights and references for the First Nations Peoples food insecurity model which is the basis for discussion for the next phase of development of Foodbank’s First Nations Peoples Hunger Map.
• regularly updated the map with the latest data 
• created a web-based public version of the map, including an interactive dashboard.