Global Impact Awards
Tackling Food Insecurity in Australia
Theme: Beyond Citations
Research Initiative Summary
We have collaborated with The One Box (TOB), an innovative food relief charity, to develop a framework to assess and communicate impacts on beneficiaries. We have documented recipients’ health, economic, and social well-being. Using our research, TOB has increased its funding, tripling its program to help more people.
Inspiration for Research Initiative
Since 2020, the state of Victoria has spent over 74 million AUD (about 52 million USD) to fund food relief charities. Across Australia, the amount is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Each year, governments are spending more. Yet despite increasing levels of funding, the number of Australian families experiencing food insecurity is increasing. The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates that one in eight households experience food insecurity. This estimate is widely regarded as conservative, with the Foodbank Hunger Report 2024 showing that nearly half of low-income households face food insecurity; many households are reaching a breaking point.
Research shows that food insecurity is linked with reduced physical health (poor nutrition) and mental health (shame and stigma of receiving charity and uncertainty of food availability), and places an increased economic strain on the public health system.
Currently, in Australia and around the world, the main way of addressing food insecurity is with “rescued” food, food that supermarkets and green grocers have been unable to sell but can donate to food banks. The supply is unpredictable, and the quality may be poor—bruised, moldy, or past its best-by date. Access to food banks may also be daunting: Recipients typically must travel to the food relief charity, which can be problematic for people relying on public transport. Even recipients who reach the food bank are not guaranteed any food because the supply is often unpredictable, a problem documented in our research.
Research has also shown that the current unpredictable, rescued-food approach to alleviating food insecurity is more of a Band-Aid and has limited long-term benefits. An alternative model of food relief, TOB, provides families in need with a guaranteed weekly box of freshly purchased fruit, vegetables, and bread, distributed through schools.
Partnering with TOB, Monash Business School researchers provided a rigorous, evidence-based assessment of The One Box approach to relieving food insecurity. They found that TOB’s approach not only addresses immediate nutritional needs but also promotes dignity, trust, and consistent access to healthy food and alleviates the need for families to spend hours traveling in the hope of receiving food.
This research partnership with TOB is aligned with Monash University’s strategic priority of thriving communities, ensuring that research outputs contribute to building resilience, reducing poverty, and enhancing well-being across Australian communities.
Description of Research Initiative
The collaboration between Monash Business School and TOB is a pioneering research initiative designed to address food insecurity while advancing innovative models of food relief. The purpose of the research initiative is to evaluate and strengthen TOB’s food relief model through rigorous academic inquiry, ensuring that its benefits are systematically measured, communicated, and used to inform both practice and policy.
Since 2020, the Monash team has worked with TOB to co-develop an impact framework based on the voices of beneficiaries and school community coordinators—the people who either experienced or witnessed the impacts of TOB’s program. This approach contrasts with the predominant method of measuring charities’ outcomes (the impacts based on the charities’ goals) and instead measures impacts as reported by the participants most closely involved.
The recipients and school-distribution coordinators themselves identify benefits based on lived experience; our approach results in an impact framework that more fully and accurately captures the value of this alternative model of food relief while providing recipients with agency to contribute to the measurement tool. We have conducted over 100 interviews with beneficiaries and school coordinators and have supplemented these interviews with questionnaires for beneficiaries to document changes to their circumstances.
Based on thematic analyses of the interviews and the subsequent questionnaires, the framework that we developed highlights three domains of impact associated with TOB’s model of food relief:
Nutrition and Well-Being (health benefits)
- Reduced food insecurity
- Increased nutritional intake
- Increased subjective well-being/quality of life
- Reduced anxiety (due to surety of food provision)
- Improved physical health
Community Building and Support (social benefits)
- Established trusted connections with schools, allowing schools to refer beneficiaries to additional services (for example, accommodation for domestic violence cases, helping with details on how to access social security, English language classes, financial literacy classes, etc.)
- Strengthened friendships among families and support networks at school
- Improved school attendance by children
Financial Savings for Families (economic benefits)
- Improved standard of living
- increased financial resilience
- Help rising out of poverty. The guaranteed food provision provides parents with time and mental space to seek employment. In some schools, 25 percent of participating families have voluntarily withdrawn after achieving self-reliance.
- Estimated weekly savings of 41.76 AUD per family. This money can then be used to pay off debts, buy uniforms, etc.
As such, our research has provided robust evidence that TOB’s model not only alleviates immediate hunger but also improves health and well-being, builds community connections, improves family finances, and, most importantly, reduces food insecurity.
Our research is used by TOB in grant applications and in requesting funds from philanthropic foundations. TOB credits our research for its success in increasing its funding, allowing TOB to triple its box deliveries from 40,000 (2020) to an expected 120,000 (2025). As such, our research has enabled more people to experience improved health and increased social and economic benefits.
Impact of Research Initiative
Impact on The One Box
Since 2020, we have provided TOB with 12 industry reports. These include the development of the beneficiary-focused impact framework, the validation of the framework, annual reports furnishing qualitative and quantitative data on the impacts of TOB’s program from a beneficiary perspective, and annual reports documenting the financial effectiveness of TOB’s model of food relief (for example, beneficiaries receive 2 AUD in retail value of food for every 1 AUD donated).
The framework and reports have become critical operational and strategic tools for TOB, embedded in TOB’s annual reporting, fundraising campaigns, and stakeholder communications. By shifting from output-based reporting (number of boxes delivered) to outcome-based reporting based on our research (nutrition, well-being, resilience, and savings), TOB has demonstrated its effectiveness to funders. As a result, philanthropic support has grown significantly, enabling TOB to triple its reach from delivering 40,000 boxes in 2020 to 120,000 in 2025.
Impact on Families
Because the program’s reach has tripled, 2,500 households across Australia now receive TOB’s guaranteed weekly boxes of freshly purchased fruit, vegetables, and bread. As TOB’s 2024 impact report notes, “For many families, The One Box is more than fresh produce. It is a sign they are supported, valued and not alone. The second year of Monash Business School’s longitudinal study shows that The One Box Model can provide far-reaching benefits: lifting confidence, restoring dignity, and creating momentum for lasting change.”
Impact on Schools
School coordinators have highlighted how TOB’s model of weekly delivery through the schools strengthens relationships among families and with schools. Schools have noted children’s improved well-being, school attendance, and classroom engagement.
Impact on the Charity Sector
The collaboration has influenced broader practice in the charity sector. We have shared our methodology and findings at professional events hosted by CPA Australia, Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), the Institute of Management Accountants, and the Social Impact Measurement Network of Australia (SIMNA). By demonstrating a replicable beneficiary-led evaluation approach, the research has set a benchmark for impact measurement in the sector, encouraging other charities to adopt similar models.
Impact on Public Discourse
The research informed our 2024 submission to the Legislative Council Legal and Social Issues Committee’s inquiry into food security in Victoria, highlighting the benefits of long-term, guaranteed food relief models. The findings have also been featured in media outlets such as The West Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald, raising public awareness of food insecurity and influencing debate.
Academic Impact
This collaboration has resulted in three Australian Business Dean’s Council A*-rated publications by Kober and Thambar (2021, 2022, 2023). The 2021 article was the first to document how accounting is used by charities during crises. All three articles have been highly cited since publication, with a total of 151 Google citations to date.
Recognition
The collaboration has been acknowledged with multiple awards, including the 2021 CIMA Research Excellence Award, the 2023 SIMNA Outstanding Collaboration Award, and the 2024 Monash Business School Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research Impact.