Feeding the hungry and fighting waste
FoodForward SA sources surplus produce and directs it where it’s needed
NON-PROFIT organisation, FoodForward SA’s Second Harvest Programme is set to ensure more agricultural produce reaches hungry South Africans and will add to job security for its workforce of about 50 permanent staff.
The organisation launched the programme in Cape Town yesterday, which sources and collects surplus fruit and vegetables from commercial farmers across South Africa and redistributes the fresh produce to the 600 beneficiary organisations in their network.
According to FoodForward SA, 50% of edible agricultural produce is wasted because of specification requirements, cold-chain and processing inadequacies, and access to markets. This results in nutritious food going to waste while 14 million South African go hungry every day.
Established in 2009 to address hunger, FoodForward SA connects a world of excess to a world of need by recovering surplus food from the consumer goods supply chain.
At a cost of 79 cents a meal, the organisation reaches up to 250000 people daily through its beneficiary organisations and includes orphanages, places of safety, crèches, disability care, aged care, skills and youth development centres.
The Second Harvest allows farmers to donate their post-harvest surpluses while they are harvesting, to ensure the food does not go to waste.
Andy du Plessis, managing director of FoodForward SA, said the organisation was working with a network of farmers in the Western Cape, Gauteng and KwaZuluNatal to improve the nutrition level of the groceries provided to beneficiaries.
“Dedicated refrigerated vehicles go directly to our farmers to collect fresh fruit and vegetable while they are harvesting.
“This fresh produce meaningfully increases the nutritional value of the food as well as volume, which significantly increases the number of people FoodForward SA are able to reach,” said Du Plessis.
Du Plessis said there were two ways the organisation got produce into its warehouses through its logistics network.
“The first is when our trucks go out to our distribution centres and collect. There we have drivers, we have general workers, we have warehouses in six of the provinces, roughly 50 full-time staff who manage this, and then we rely on beneficiary organisations to provide volunteers when we get new surpluses. They help us to make sure that we de-face everything (remove branding), that we check everything for quality assurance and that when we book stock in, it is good for human consumption,” he said.
Du Plessis added that the second way was through food-share digital technology.
“Beneficiary organisations connect with retail stores, they go out daily and collect surplus goods there and then they send us the information via USSD (unstructured supplementary service data) at no cost to them. That information comes into our inventory system on a daily basis.
“We have received quite a bit of funding from donors to buy trucks to cover operational costs because our operation is quite labour intensive. We’ve got warehouses, we’ve got trucks to maintain, we’ve got to put fuel in the trucks and of course staff to sort, de-face and manage the stock.”
Du Plessis said the organisation had not received support from government yet although they were in talks with some government departments on a provincial level around partnership opportunities.
Du Plessis said food banking was the most effective solution at present to reducing hunger and reducing food waste and is the third most effective solution in fighting climate change.