FoodForward SA established the Mobile Rural Depot (MRD) programme in 2019 to address rural food insecurity in a sustainable way. Once a month, our trucks travel to designated areas in rural communities (the ‘mobile depots’) to deliver food provisions consisting of healthy, fresh produce and groceries to vetted beneficiary organisations that are part of our network. We establish MRDs in districts with high poverty indicators and since 2019 we have launched the programme in 28 communities across South Africa.
On 28 January 2022, we launched our newest MRD – in Emalahleni, Mpumalanga. The Witbank Society for the Aged, Inkosinami, Mpumalanga Mental Health Society and Mpumalanga Youth Council are the first four beneficiary organisations that will benefit from this MRD. Previously, they travelled for one and a half hours to collect food provisions from our Johannesburg branch.
Apart from our newest MRD in Emalahleni, FoodForward SA’s MRD programme in Mpumalanga also operates in White River and Goba, a town close to the Mozambican border. We are now reaching over 160,000 people with our rural food security strategy through 420 rural-based beneficiary organisations across South Africa.