One of Australia's biggest food charity's cupboards are almost bare as demand skyrockets and donations fall amid the cost-of-living crisis.
Foodbank Victoria has been forced to launch a two-day emergency food drive across August 10 and 11 to re-stock its "dangerously empty" warehouse shelves.
Chief commercial officer Katie Fisher said the organisation was feeding 50,000 people every day at the beginning of 2023 and that figure has since risen to 65,000.
"The physical volume of food for that number of people is just phenomenal," she told AAP on Friday.
"That's one in 100 Victorians that have their food every day from Foodbank.
"To keep up with that growth is probably what's got us into this position."
The charity usually receives scores of donations from food manufacturers looking to clean their slate at the end of the financial year, but that stock bump didn't come through in 2024.
"Businesses aren't holding surplus inventory so they're not making as much, they're not picking extra fruit and veg for opportunistic markets," Ms Fisher said.
"They're just investing into inputs that they know they have an end market for, and the food relief sector from a donations perspective relies on that opportunistic piece, which just isn't there at the moment.
"That's across the board - donations are down across the country."
The soaring number of people accessing food relief is not isolated to Victoria.
Ms Fisher said it was a national problem driven initially by the COVID-19 pandemic and later cost-of-living pressures eating into families' financial buffers.
"Week on week, we've seen more people, across the whole country, having to access food relief for the first time," she said.
"You see middle-income people, working families, duel-income families just trying to survive and entering these food relief centres for the first time.
"But there's been no change in the underlying cohorts who are still accessing services."
Foodbank Victoria spent an extra $5 million in 2023 on purchasing food to compensate for falling donations and rising consumer demand.
While Ms Fisher conceded shelves will likely not run completely empty, she said the food drive would help boost the number of people it can support.
Tuna, pasta, pasta sauce, rice, cereal, UHT milk, and canned fruit and vegetables are among the items the charity is most keen to receive.
People are urged to drop off donations at Foodbank's Yarraville warehouse or participate in the charity's virtual food drive online.
