Big thank you to the thousands who helped to feed the hungry
THE FoodForward SA Mandela Day Food Drive, in partnership with Pick n Pay, was a national call to action for all South Africans to stand together and fight hunger by either purchasing basic food ingredients and/or volunteering their time.
The national food drive will help stock FoodForward SA’s warehouses across the country with staple foods during winter to ensure that the 600 beneficiary organisations they serve can continue to provide warm meals to the 250 000 people they feed daily.
“On behalf of hundreds of thousands of hungry South Africans, we extend our thanks to the thousands of volunteers who came together to fight hunger, either by volunteering their time in Pick n Pay stores, encouraging shoppers to buy and donate food, or donating their time to sort and pack the food for our 600 beneficiary organisations,” says Andy Du Plessis.
For about 14 million people, securing food is a daily struggle, one that leads to compromised nutrition, skipping meals, eating smaller portions and also very common – going without food for days.
“The people of South Africa made a tangible effort to address this need among our fellow citizens, and we were inspired by the commitment and volunteer spirit on this important day,” he added.
“Together we collected 134 tons of food and counters from Pick n Pay stores and volunteers sorted and packed the food across the country during their 67 minutes.”
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One third of all food produced in South Africa goes to waste during the course of production, processing, distribution and consumption, due mostly to poor storage facilities, market inefficiencies, and bottlenecks in the supply chain, costing an estimated R61 billion annually.
“Yet, in the midst of all this abundance of waste, we have a significant proportion of our population living in conditions of food scarcity and insecurity,” added Du Plessis.
Chep South Africa, a supply chain logistics and pallet container company came to the aid of the FoodForward SA Mandela Day Food Drive. It is critical that food gets to the beneficiary organisations in the same condition that it leaves the factory and Chep South Africa was pleased to be able to make the packing event possible by donating the use of vital material handling equipment.
Chep South Africa supplied food grade bins to all participating stores to collect consumer donations, which were centralised into regional hubs for the main Mandela Day sorting and packing events. They also supplied foldable crates to FoodForward SA at the regional packing events to aid in sorting and packing.
“Without Chep’s equipment and logistical expertise this would have been a very difficult project to pull together,” said Du Plessis.
FoodForward SA would also like to thank Pick n Pay for coming on board for the second year to help facilitate the campaign and to drive the in-store food drive. We are extremely grateful for the partnership that has proven to be a fruitful one.
Suzanne Ackerman-Berman, Pick n Pay Director of Transformation, says: “We have (a) long-standing relationship with FoodForward SA whereby we donate edible surplus food from our stores throughout the year. With this donation, more than eight million meals are distributed each year.
The Mandela Day Food Drive is aimed at providing a much-needed boost during winter to further support those who haven’t got access to food on a daily basis.
“We were overwhelmed by the support (from) our customers and communities in making this a possibility.”