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Waste not, want not — how FoodForward SA is redistributing food and transforming lives

Waste not, want not — how FoodForward SA is redistributing food and transforming lives
Lillian Roberts
By Lillian Roberts
16 Oct 2024
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While millions of tons of food go to waste in South Africa, people go to bed hungry. One organisation is taking a practical approach to solving food waste, alleviating landfills, and filling stomachs across the country.

It’s World Food Day, the Food and Agricultural Organisation’s yearly event. This year’s theme is the “right to food for a better life and a better future”. The organisation states that worldwide 2.8 billion people are unable to afford a healthy diet. 

In September of this year, more than 17 million people applied for the R370 monthly Social Relief of Distress grant, according to the South African Social Security Agency. More than half of all applicants have never been employed. According to Statista, as of 2023, about 18.2 million people in South Africa are living in extreme poverty. More than half of the country experiences food insecurity. 

As Lori Lake, one of the editors of South African Child Gauge 2024, and communication and education specialist at the Children’s Institute of the University of Cape Town, pointed out in a recent editorial, “stunting rates have remained stubbornly high, with 29% of children under five stunted or short for age”, and obesity in children is dramatically increasing, too — a sign of the double burden of malnutrition. 

In South Africa, 10 million tons of food go to waste annually. 

FoodForward SA is a food banking system, taking food from farms, manufacturers and retailers that is still perfectly edible, and redistributing it to the people who need it most. During the 2023/2024 financial year, it distributed 87 million meals across South Africa, and achieved this at a cost per meal of only R0,47, due to support from donors, partners and volunteers.

Daily Maverick did a quick Q&A to see what’s happening during this year’s World Food Day drive. 

How many meals are you packing for World Food Day? 


On World Food Day, we aim to pack 450 pallets of food across our three packing events in Cape Town, Johannesburg, and Durban, which will provide 1.8 million meals in total.

 How many organisations do you support?


FoodForward supports nearly 2,500 beneficiary organisations that provide daily meals to more than 920,000 individuals.

 How much food will not be wasted this World Food Day? 


We will save 450 tons of food from ending up in landfills, as all the food packed on World Food Day has been generously donated to us.

 How can people support FoodForward SA?


There are many ways to get involved with FoodForwardSA:

  • Financial Donations: You can make a financial contribution by visiting our website at org/donate.

  • Food Industry Partnerships: We invite businesses in the food industry to reach out to us at [email protected] to learn how you can donate edible surplus produce to FoodForward SA.

  • Volunteer Programme: For individuals looking to get involved, we offer a year-round volunteer programme. Groups can visit any of our national warehouses to assist in packing pallets of food for distribution to our beneficiary organisations. To join our volunteer programme, visit: org/volunteer-sign-up-form. DM

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