Overview
We are deeply indebted
to our donors, suppliers, partners and volunteers for your ongoing support.
Through your amazing contributions and partnership, we have not only been able
to carry out our core business – addressing food insecurity (SDG2: Zero Hunger)
– our surplus food recovery model is also helping to significantly reduce food
waste (SDG 12: Responsible Production & Consumption) thus having a positive
impact on the environment (SDG 13: Climate Action).
Since March 2022, the start our financial year, our network has grown to 2,750 beneficiary organisations (BOs). These BO’s enable us to reach approximately 950,000 vulnerable beneficiaries daily. Since March, we have recovered 14,150 tons of food from our supply chain partners – farmers, manufacturers, retailers –
equating 56,6 million meals and enabling the saving of 56,600 tons of greenhouse gas emissions.
In September, to coincide with the International Day of Food Loss & Waste, FoodForward SA launched the Repurpose the Surplus campaign with a cook-off challenge at Maker’s Landing in Cape Town which saw four teams competing against each other to show that nutritious wholesome meals can be made from food that many perceive as waste. In South Africa, 10 million tons of food – much of this good quality surplus food – is dumped or incinerated annually while 30 million people suffer food insecurity. The campaign aims to educate and change people’s perception about surplus food while raising awareness about South Africa’s food insecurity crisis and what we can do to address it. The large-scale food wasting will continue until such time there is a clear and coherent food donations policy in South Africa. FoodForward SA has been working closely with the Consumer Goods Council of South Africa (CGCSA), The Global Foodbanking Network (GFN), and the Harvard Law School Food Policy Clinic on draft recommendations for a policy. Moreover, we have also drawn up a petition for a food donations policy to end hunger in South Africa and hope to have 100 000 signatures for it to be considered in parliament. Please help us and sign the petition.
The People We impact
FoodForward SA
currently serves a network of 2,750 registered beneficiary organisations (BOs)
nationally. Our network of BOs include old age homes serving the frail and
elderly, orphanages serving abandoned children and orphans, community kitchens
serving the unemployed and indigent, early childhood development centres
serving pre-schoolers, HIV/AIDS/TB clinics serving vulnerable patients,
after-care facilities providing a safe space for children after school, centres
providing shelter for vulnerable women, shelters providing refuge for homeless
people, and skills centres providing a space for unemployed youth to attend
skills training programmes. All our BOs are carefully vetted before they are
on-boarded as members of FoodForward SA’s BO network and each BO receives a
quarterly, unannounced monitoring visit to ensure that the food distributed
goes to the intended beneficiaries.
Our Food Security Strategy
FoodForward SA has a multi-faceted food security strategy that enables us to address food insecurity at scale. Through our warehouse foodbanking programme – we have warehouses in eight provinces across SA, each with its own staff and a fleet of refrigerated trucks – our urban beneficiary organisations (BOs) are provided with monthly allocations of non-perishable food items and fresh produce. Our BOs use these food items to cook nutritious meals for their beneficiaries.
We launched our 8th and
newest branch, in Kimberley, Northern Cape, in August 2022. This branch currently
serves 66 of our beneficiary organisations (BOs) of which 25 BOs (located in
and around De Aar and Upington) are served through the mobile rural depot
programme. Apart from Kimberley, FoodForward SA’s other branches are in Cape
Town, Gqeberha, Durban, Johannesburg, Polokwane, Rustenburg and Bloemfontein.
Through these branches, FoodForward SA is serving beneficiary organisations
across South Africa. Our BOs in Mpumalanga are currently served by our Jhb
branch.
Our mobile rural depot
(MRD) programme, where our trucks go into several towns and villages once a
month, serves our beneficiary organisations (BOs) that are located far from our
urban-based warehouses. Since the start of this financial year, we expanded our
MRD footprint to seven additional towns. Our MRD programme serves a total of 34
communities across all nine provinces of South Africa. These include:
· Eastern Cape: King William’s Town, Alice, Aliwal North, East London, Mthatha, Matatiele
·
KZN:
Mtubatuba, Vryheid, Pietermaritzburg, Ladysmith, Margate
·
Mpumalanga: Embalenhle, White River, Goba, Emalahleni
·
North-West: Makapanstad, Taung, Klerksdorp, Mafikeng
· Western Cape: Langebaan, George, Oudtshoorn, Greyton, Malmesbury, Worcester, Beaufort-West
·
Free State: Bethlehem, Phuthaditjhaba
·
Limpopo:
Tzaneen, Thohoyandou, Mokwakwaila Village
·
Northern Cape: De Aar, Upington
Through our digital
platform (FoodShare), beneficiary organisations are virtually connected with
partner retail stores (Woolworths, Food Lover’s Market and Pick n Pay) for the
collection of surplus food. Since FoodShare’s pilot in 2017, the digital
platform has undergone extensive development, to currently incorporate five
modules:
• Module 1:
Client/Supplier Database
• Module 2: Virtual
Foodbanking
• Module 3: Warehouse
Collections Scheduling
• Module 4: Online
Applications
• Module 5: Monitoring
Forms
FoodShare continues to
be a game-changer for FoodForward SA that is enabling us to address food
insecurity at scale.
The Second Harvest programme is FoodForward
SA’s engagement with farmers, to facilitate the collection of post-harvest
agri-surplus. The OneFarm Share partnership with Standard Bank and HelloChoice
has enabled us to distribute over 3,500 tons of fresh produce to our
beneficiary organisations.
FoodForward SA also has
its own accredited Supply Chain Youth Internship whereby unemployed youth are
trained in warehousing and logistics. Since the launch of the Internship,
FoodForward SA has permanently employed 16 youth of the total 51 trained.
KwaZulul-Natal Flood Relief
Over the past seven
months, FoodForward SA has been providing a nutritious cooked meal, seven days
a week, to more than 5,000 people displaced by the devastating April 2022
floods. The beneficiaries of our KZN disaster relief programme received the
meals, which included snacks and fruit, in 30 community halls in flood affected
areas. During the past seven months, we provided 277 tons of food, equivalent
to 1,1 million meals to affected people. While FoodForward SA has concluded its
warm meals project, we are continuing to make meals available to learners in
two schools until the 15th of December, reaching 236 children daily. The
Departments of Public Works and Human Settlements have also stepped in, with a
commitment to relocate all flood victims to other live-in facilities by the
15th of December 2022.
