The coronavirus pandemic has been a blow to Australian families already living week to week, leaving them counting coins and wondering whether they can put food on the table.

But in the regional Victorian city of Bendigo, a group of students from La Trobe University is now pitching a grassroots way to get in front of the region's food insecurity and show people how they can cook and eat nutritious food at home cheaply.

Gemma Ritchie, a first-year accounting student at La Trobe University's Bendigo campus, says their prototype café means people can drop by their one-stop shop and share their ideas and expertise, as well as taste and learn how to cook cheap food.

"We have an amazing set-up [with] a real community feeling. It's that give-and-take mentality where people who just want to have a chat can contribute their skills or receive some advice," she said.

"More than ever, people are having to decide whether they pay other expenses or whether they eat and that is a massive thing because everyone has the right to eat, no matter their circumstances.

"We don't want them to have to choose between food or paying a bill they may not have expected to come through as high as it did."

All eyes on food relief

The community kitchen idea joins ABC Central Victoria's campaign with the Eaglehawk Community House to raise money for Foodbank and distribute it through the community house in the lead-up to Christmas.

Frontline charities have been in the thick of it for the past two years, with Kyneton Caring Community (KCC) reporting a 15 per cent increase in demand over the last month, as the federal government reduced its JobSeeker and JobKeeper payments.

KCC reduced its service to appointment-only to avoid having too many people in the same space and led call-outs for the public to donate tins of food.

Brad Hodge, a lecturer at the university's Rural School of Health, led the students through the week-long intensive scheme and said they really thought about what not going hungry means.

"We might not have a simple recipe. This is about saying: to live well we need to eat good quality food but sometimes we're busy."

Matthew Moylan is the communications and development officer at Healthy Greater Bendigo and says the community café concept will be delivered to hunger relief charities, support organisations and VicHealth.

"We hope that they might like the idea that our innovation sprint team had put together so that they can potentially look at funding an initiative like this in the future cause we can see it could really have a fantastic impact across Greater Bendigo," he said.