Rising cost of living pressures have seen a record number of families and agencies seeking support from Food Share, which has upped its volunteer hours to cope with the demand.
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The agency saw a spike in demand during the COVID-19 pandemic which Warrnambool & District Food Share executive officer Amanda Hennessy said had continued throughout 2022.
"Where we had a spike from COVID-19 we're still experiencing it," Ms Hennessy said.
"It hasn't dropped off. The need is still there. I would say it's the impact of cost of living and the recovery from COVID-19 hasn't occurred for some families yet.
"I would have hoped the spike would have come down by now but let's hope we see that next year."
Ms Hennessy said there was a 12 per cent increase in the number of food hampers it distributed. Last year the agency distributed a total of 5600 hampers, compared to 6300 this year to November 30.
She said about 150 tonnes of food had gone out so far this year, compared to 158 tonnes at the same time last year. The decreased figure was due to challenges sourcing product at times or not enough fresh produce, which she said was "the real challenge for us to put in hampers".
Food Share has joined forces with Ilowa's Volcano Produce's Ben Pohlner who will plant and grow produce to be distributed across the region.
"I used to be able to order 450 kilograms of fruit and veg from Melbourne," Ms Hennessy said. "That's been cut back. They're trying to distribute across Victoria and trying to deal with floods and all sorts of things out of that central warehouse, so to mitigate that the Volcano Produce partnership is amazing because Ben's been supporting us locally."
Volunteer hours have risen by more than 30 per cent with 5900 hours contributed to date, compared to 4400 last year.
"We're doing morning and afternoon shifts now because we're moving so much food," she said.
The afternoon shift was introduced during the pandemic as part of a government-funded program to distribute bulk food.
"We're getting to more people with more hampers," she said.
"We're meeting the need and at some stage you would think that we're going to drop off from this level of need but we haven't seen it yet.
"We've got all the systems and processes in place to deal with it. We're not overwhelmed.
"We would welcome any donations from the public. The public support we're receiving is just fantastic."
