When Jane Beecroft stopped cooking lunches at the Otago University Students’ Association (OUSA) in 2022 she thought she was "done for good".
But after a few years in hibernation, the 67-year-old Hare Krishna devotee is back with a food truck called Krishna Kai that aims to provide cheap meals across Dunedin.
"In the back of my mind I’d always wanted to do it again.
"We left such a big gap and I guess I always had that desire to be feeding people."
Ms Beecroft said she had a dream to have a kitchen on wheels that could go around different neighbourhoods feeding people — like Mr Whippy except with Hare Krishna music.
She said the food truck model gave her a lot more flexibility to go to different places and feed more people than ever, but also to go on holiday when she needed to.
The motivation to serve food came from the belief that no-one within a 16km radius of a Hare Krishna Centre should go hungry.
"Our teacher said that no-one should go hungry within a 10-mile radius and there are people going hungry and that’s something that I don’t feel comfortable about."
Ms Beecroft served about half a million meals to hungry students during her 23 years cooking at the OUSA kitchen in Albany St.
She had moved to Dunedin in 1997 to take a break from working, but ended up running the kitchen after teaching students how to cook cheap vegetarian meals.
She even trained Caversham eatery The Bowling Club co-owner Liam Arthur out of that kitchen.
Ms Beecroft said the price of food and the cost of living were the things that had changed the most since she stopped making food in 2022.
There was a real need for cheap meals across Dunedin, but the food truck would also offer a community for people, including international students far from home.
The food truck would start serving food today at Yogiji’s Food Mart in Leith St — close to the University of Otago for students to access its cheap food.
From next week it would be operate outside Yogiji’s two days a week and up to five days a week at the Hare Krishna Cultural Centre in London St.
The menu would be "pretty much" the same as last time with the addition of healthy smoothies and juices.
Pasta and pizza would be on today’s menu.
