City Mission Whanganui's Dr Antony Nobbs says the organisation has had a 100% increase in food demand in 2025. Photo / Fin Ocheduszko Brown
Whanganui is in the midst of a food crisis and a support agency is warning it can’t continue to meet the need under its current model.
The “sobering” message from City Mission Whanganui manager Dr Antony Nobbs was presented at a Whanganui District Council meeting this week.
Nobbs warned that the City Mission would not be able to continue to meet the demands on its foodbank and Ara social supermarket unless there were major changes to funding models.
“Unless the situation changes, we will run out of money in March and we will have to start closing things in May.”
In his three years in the role, there had been a 20% increase in food demand in 2023, 25% increase in 2024 and 100% increase in 2025.
“We do have a food crisis in Whanganui,” Nobbs said.
“People in our city are really struggling to be able to get enough food.”
A new development over winter had been the number of older people seeking assistance because of increases in power charges.
“It’s a choice - pay your power bill or buy food.”
In addition, “Work and Income are giving letters to people saying food isn’t considered an essential item”, Nobbs said.
“So we are in a context where it feels like the Government is stepping away from its accountability and its responsibility to look after people and making that the responsibility of an NGO [non-governmental organisation].”
Social Development Minister Louise Upston told the Chronicle it appeared the letter about food not being an essential item had been “auto-generated after a food grant application was denied with the incorrect reason selected”.
“The letter was incorrect and should not have been sent. MSD [Ministry of Social Development] are aware of the error and will remedy this,” Upston said.
“MSD does consider food as an essential cost and people facing hardship can apply for food costs to be covered by emergency special needs grants, which people usually do not have to pay back.”
There had been no recent changes to hardship eligibility criteria.
“If people are, or know of someone, facing hardship, I would encourage them to get in contact with MSD to see what help MSD can provide.
“From July to September this year, MSD provided 327,705 food grants.”
Graham Allpress, the MSD’s group general manager of client service delivery, said applications for emergency special needs grants, including food, were assessed on a case-by-case basis.
“We want to assure people that we regard food as an essential cost, which is why people can apply for food costs to be covered by emergency special needs grants,” Allpress said.
“There are a number of reasons a food grant would be declined, but ‘not an essential cost’ would not be one of them. It is likely the error in the letter was a data entry error and we apologise for confusion it may have caused.
“There may be occasional instances like this that are a result of human error and we will always seek to correct them where we can. If any client receives a letter from us that does not look right, or that they disagree with, they can apply for a Review of Decision.”
Nobbs said to date, the City Mission had not had to turn anyone away.
Between January and November, the mission provided food support to 23,732 people (made up of individual visits and multiple returns).
It included 4627 food parcels that supported 10,748 people with a week’s worth of food. There were also 2128 social supermarket shops which provided 5500 people with a week’s worth of food. Another 7420 people were supported with a day’s worth of food.
The organisation processed 1575 venison carcasses for food parcels, grew 4500kg of vegetables and imported 50,673kg of food that would not otherwise have come to Whanganui.
A “big chunk of that” had gone to the food bank but the City Mission also worked with nine other food organisations, including in Marton and Bulls, and had given 1986 boxes of food to them.
“It’s a big scale, it’s really challenging – we can’t keep doing this going forward,” Nobbs said.
Moves to help address the problem included growing more food, getting more wild venison to process and trying to buy the City Mission building to reduce costs.
In response to a question from Deputy Mayor Michael Law, Nobbs said the mission was also able to process steers.
A key focus was to establish multi-year funding partnerships.
“The traditional model of foodbanks and the traditional model of funding is no longer fit for purpose.”
However, most funders were not interested in multi-year arrangements.
“The Whanganui Community Foundation have averted our immediate crisis by agreeing to come on for three years,” Nobbs said.
“We’re looking at doing something similar with yourselves [council] and with MSD. We need long-term funding. Without that, we are just going to struggle.”
Whanganui people and organisations had been “kind and supportive”, Nobbs said.
“But the numbers we are facing are really hard to deal with and our expectation is they are going to increase significantly in 2026.”
He had met with MSD representatives, who said they were prepared to work with the City Mission, Whanganui Community Foundation and the council to “work out something”.
“Our only realistic option if we can’t get more funding is we turn people away,” Nobbs said.
He told the Chronicle the solution would need key partners to work together and “think outside the box”.
“The old model can only support 5000-6000 people annually but now we’re supporting more than 20,000.
“Whanganui Community Foundation is a good example of people thinking outside the square. We’re very lucky we have support from them. It’s quite brave of them to step outside their usual way of doing business.”
Whanganui Mayor Andrew Tripe told the meeting the update was “very sobering to hear”.
“I’m keen to follow up and get very specific around what our council’s role here is.
“I don’t want to guess what that is right now but I think there’s a lot to unpack from this conversation.”
Tripe expected there would be an update on the council’s role later this month.
Sue Dudman is an NZME regional content leader, based in Whanganui.