A simple tweak to tax rules could provide an additional 100 million meals a year for Australians struggling with rising costs, according to the nation's largest food-relief organisation.
Foodbank provides 1 million meals per month, but the charity says it is struggling to keep up with soaring demand.
It relies heavily on farmers, manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers to donate produce, and is now looking for new ways to source additional produce.
Foodbank wants the federal government to adopt a policy already in place in countries such as the United States, Canada and France which provides tax breaks to companies that donate their surplus food.
CEO Brianna Casey said it was a relatively minor change that would help the organisation assist a growing number of people in need and make donating food essentially cheaper than throwing it out.
"The unfortunate situation in Australia is that there's no incentive to donate products that won't make it to market," she said.
"When we look at the current tax system for farmers and manufacturers, when they have a product that doesn't make it to market, the tax system treats it exactly the same way for donating as it would for dumping," she said.
'A rounding error for Treasury'
Foodbank has lobbied successive governments for the "food waste tax incentive" which it claims would reduce landfill and ensure more people receive meals.
Under the proposal, businesses that donated food would be able to reduce the amount of tax they paid via a refundable tax offset or a non-refundable tax credit.
Ms Casey said the cost of living crisis made the proposal — which was formed with the assistance of KPMG and The Fight Food Waste Cooperative Research Centre — more pressing than ever before.
"What we have seen in the last 12 months is a real recognition that the cost of living crisis is biting families and biting them hard," she said.
"We know in other countries across the globe where they use a tax incentive to be able to encourage people to donate rather than dump food, it makes a significant change in behaviour," she said.
A feasibility study commissioned by Foodbank found an additional 100 million meals would be made if the tax incentive was introduced.
Ms Casey said the cost to government in foregone tax revenue would be relatively small.
"It's equivalent to a rounding error for Treasury," she said.
"We're not talking about a lot of money, but we are talking about a lot of impact in terms of the resources that are being wasted in food waste.
"We know food waste costs the Australian economy $36.6 billion."
JobSeeker raise needed more than ever before
Foodbank has also called for the government to make a much more costly change, and increase the rate of JobSeeker to help those in extreme hardship.
It is a view supported by the Salvation Army.
General manager of policy and advocacy at the Salvation Army, Jennifer Kirkaldy, said more than 70 per cent of the people the organisation helped were on government payments.
She said an increase to JobSeeker payments would lift many people out of poverty, and save the government money in the long term.
"I've heard the argument that increasing JobSeeker is expensive, but having people go to the emergency room because they're not taking their medication is also going to be expensive," she said.
"In the long run, having lower health, educational and employment outcomes because children are being raised in poverty is going to be incredibly expensive.
"It makes a lot more economic sense to pay for it now and lift people out of poverty."
The government has consistently said it will continue to assess welfare payments, and it will also take advice from a newly formed economic inclusion advisory committee in the lead-up to the May budget.
The committee will examine inflation and how that is hurting different sectors of the community.
Cost of living pressures
New figures from the Salvation Army reveal cost of living pressures are the primary reason people have asked for help in recent months.
Since November, nearly 36 per cent of people have said increased expenses have stretched them too far.
Ms Kirkaldy said the figure was alarmingly high.
"Over a third of everyone who comes to us for emergency relief are identifying the rising cost of living as the reason," she said.
"That is something we haven't seen before in terms of just identifying one problem.
"It is stark, and it's quite pervasive."
The situation is most troubling in the Northern Territory, where more than 60 per cent of clients said increased expenses were the key reason they needed help.
In Western Australia it was 51 per cent, followed by nearly 43 per cent in Victoria and 37 per cent in South Australia.
But rising costs are not just harming households. They are also increasing pressure on the charities established to assist them.
Ms Kirkaldy said the increase in the cost of essential items had made it harder for the Salvation Army to provide substantial relief.
"If we are handing out a $50 voucher, for example, that's simply not going to have as much of an impact now as it had 12 months ago. It's going to have even less of an impact in a year's time," she said.
