The rescued rations help the many families doing it tough in this prosperous city. And there are many of them. They can buy the dry goods and chilled food at cost price at one of the two dozen pantries operated by charities in the territory.

The demand for their services is increasing, from the unemployed, pensioners and the "working poor" – people who suddenly find themselves struggling with bills as a result of illness or relationship breakdown.

The ACT government pays for the food to come from the Foodbank warehouse in Sydney. That operation rescues edible but surplus food and groceries from farmers, manufacturers and retailers.

The weekly semi-trailer load of food arrives at a Hume warehouse each Monday and is distributed to the pantries the next day.

The biggest such pantry in the ACT is operated at Charnwood by the Life Unlimited Church, known locally as Life UC.

Around 300 families come to its HandUp store every week, to browse for low-cost groceries.

Operations manager Danielle Bate says the pantry receives four pallets a week from the Sydney shipment. In addition, the mini-supermarket has low-cost vegetables.

"We are reliant on food rescued from seven supermarkets around Belconnen to provide us with fresh food and vegetables and bread," she says.

"Our volunteers go around every morning and afternoon to collect from the supermarkets."

The church store asks for only a gold coin donation for the locally rescued fruit and vegetables.

Last year it had 200 families registered for food assistance.

"Our food pantry is not limited to pensioners – sometimes people on good incomes hit a rough patch through unexpected events such as the loss of a job or a sudden serious illness or the breakdown of a relationship," Bate says.

"If they didn't have access to places like this, they can get caught.

"Our belief is this service is here for those people who are going through a difficult time and they can use it for as long or as little amount of time as they need to help them get through that rough patch.

"Some people find it hard to ask for help when they've been used to being independent.

"Some people only use it for a season. Other people who have been living on a lower income for a longer time like on a pension of some sort, would shop here regularly and would have been customers here for years because it helps their dollar go further."

Another shop for those doing it tough is the Helping Hand Food Pantry at St Pauls Ginninderra Anglican Church.

Reverend Doug Newman says it began eight years ago when the parish was looking to see how it could help the local community.

"We decided we'd run it for a couple of months to see if anybody was interested, but by the time we were three weeks in we realised there was a much bigger need than we had any idea of," he says.

The Helping Hand is run by volunteers and opens on Thursdays and Fridays and also benefits from the ACT government-sponsored delivery from Foodbank in Sydney.

"There are now about 20 pantries across Canberra but rather than everyone trying to do it themselves, which would not be economic, there's a single contract to bring that to Canberra every week," he says.

Since the food is not free to the pantry, it is run on a cost recovery basis.

"Each pantry does it slightly differently but we run it at a set price of $1.75 a kilo," he says.

"A kilo box of Weet-Bix that would cost you seven or eight dollars in a supermarket would cost you $1.75 if you came to us.

"Some things cost us more than $1.75 a kilo and some cost less but we've worked out if we charge that, we'll actually pretty much come out even.

"We're trying to be not for profit but also with our nose just in front of the line rather than behind it."

About 50 to 60 people shop at the Helping Hand each week and Newman says he is not surprised at the demand.

"I'm not happy with it but what I am happy with is that we're not seeing the same families that we saw eight years ago," he says.

"One of the great stories I love is the young mum who had a two year old and other kids at school and shopped here for several years.

"Once the youngest daughter went to school, we helped her get a job and she is still working for that company and has been promoted several times.

"What she needed was a hand to get over being a single mum with a child at home.

"Some families are recent immigrants, they tend to come for a year or more after they arrive and then they'll get their jobs and get established and drop off our radar.

"Then we meet them in the community, see them around, and they're doing okay."

The hardest people to help are those on fixed incomes, such as retired people in private rental accommodation.

"If they're on the pension and trying to rent, they will be struggling."

The key to the territory-wide supply of rescued food is the weekly shipment from Sydney. And the person who keeps that running is Max Kimber from the Rotary Club of Canberra.

He manages the transport and delivery of the goods, and the grants from the ACT government for this service.

For this work he was awarded the 2012 ACT Volunteer of the Year in the category of community care and social support, and was made Rotarian of the Year by his club. (In 2007 he had been appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia for services to the natural gas pipeline industry.)

"The ACT government provides us a grant of around $90,000 a year which covers the cost of transport from Sydney," he says.

The following day, smaller delivery trucks take the food to the charity-run shops.

"So it's a door to door service that is provided for all those pantries," Kimber says.

"We deliver something like 450,000 kilos into the ACT each year which is equivalent to 600,000 meals per year."

Foodbank sources food from food processors and manufacturers, and collects about 10 million kilos of food each year.

However about 30 per cent of the food manufactured in Australia goes to landfill, he says.

* The Foodbank program was initiated by the Rotary Club of Canberra in 2005 to provide the door to door delivery of dry goods (tinned and packed food) chilled food (fruit and vegetables) and frozen food (meat, fish, chicken, vegetables). Roadmaster provides the transport at concessional rates in recognition of its importance to the community.

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