Meals on Wheels provides balanced nutritious meals and personal contact to elderly, infirm and disabled members of the community and their carers, with the dedicated support of volunteers.

A hot three-course meal is delivered each week day Monday to Friday (except public holidays), throughout the year. Frozen meals are also available for people without support, who may need them on week-ends. The meal consists of soup, main course and dessert and accounts for about a third of an elderly person's daily nutritional and energy requirements. Special needs are also catered for.

Meals are delivered between 11.15am and 1.30pm each day. Recipients pay a very reasonable price for their meals, which represents excellent value for money.

Our meal service plays a vital community role. It assists people to remain independently in their own home, often preventing premature admission to other types of care and enhancing their quality of life.

Our service is provided to recipients following a referral from a health professional or others, after which they are visited by Meals on Wheels and advised about the service.

Meals on Wheels caters for both long and short term needs. Those receiving meals long term are generally the aged and infirm who have been assessed as permanently requiring meals. Short term recipients are often recuperating from surgery, an accident or prolonged illness and are usually on meals for less than three months. Carers of recipients can also access the service.

About 70% of our meals are produced through our 31 fresh cook kitchens (90% of which are in the broader Adelaide urban area). 20% are sourced through hospital based branches. Both the fresh cook kitchens and hospital-based branches are run entirely by volunteers. The remaining 10% of meals are produced at our Kent Town Cook Chill facility, which is run by paid staff. These cook-chill meals are sent to several smaller metropolitan cook-chill branches where they are re-heated and delivered to recipients by volunteers.

Not surprisingly, 70% of our recipients are over 80 years of age and about half are on meals on a short term basis. The other half are long term frail aged. 65% of recipients are women and 35% men.

Meals on Wheels utilises its own kitchens to produce fresh-cook meals. In country towns, hospital kitchens cook the meals, which Meals on Wheels' volunteers deliver to people in the town and outlying areas. Meals for some branches are also prepared using cook-chill technology. This involves reducing the temperature of the meal to 3 deg C after cooking, then reheating in ovens later for delivery. For recipients in remote areas, frozen meals are provided.

80% of our funding comes from meal sales and the remaining 20% comes from Home and Community Care, a joint Federal and State Government program.

Meals on Wheels (SA) Inc. is governed by a voluntary Board of 13 people from both the branches and the broader community to ensure all necessary board skills are met. Three committees, representing the fresh cook, cook-chill and hospital-based branch operations, report to the Board while a fourth, the Finance, Audit and Governance Committee, manages governance and related matters. A small group of paid staff based in Adelaide provides administrative, policy and other support to branch volunteers.