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Food wastage is a global problem with 1.3 billion tons of good food wasted annually. As the 12th biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, South Africa wastes large quantities of food in a country where 14 million are vulnerable to food insecurity. Now, FoodBank SA is putting this wasted food to good use by re-distributing it to more than 1000 organisations around the country, and to more than 200 000 hungry people in total.
Foodbank was started after the Global Food Banking Network brought together Feedback Food Redistribution (which won an Impumelelo Innovations Award in 2008), the Lions Food Project, Johannesburg FoodBank and the Robin Good Initiative in 2009. These large organisations have now consolidated their efforts to make a more significant impact in alleviating hunger, especially since severe Protein Energy Malnutrition is the fifth most common cause of child death in South Africa.
Hundreds of kilograms of food which cannot be sold but are still fit for human consumption are delivered from large companies like Woolworths, Pick n Pay, Unilever, Nestlé, Kellogg and Pioneer Foods to FoodBank SA warehouses on a daily basis around the country. FoodBank SA staff and volunteers sort and package the items into balanced meals which are then loaded onto 30 trucks and transported to food insecure communities. Sixty-six thousand people are fed in this way every day. In 2009 FoodBank SA redistributed 5.6 million kilograms of food which provided 19 million meals to the value of R76 million.
Forty-two percent of FoodBank SA agencies support child and youth development, such as schools and shelters for orphaned and vulnerable children. Forty percent cover vulnerable adults at nutritional feeding centres and soup kitchens that serve the unemployed and HIV-infected and pregnant women. The rest of FoodBank SA’s agencies (18%) fall into the social welfare sector, which focuses on caring for the aged, the disabled and the terminally ill.
Small community-based organisations that attempt to address food insecurity, without the aid of external support are being helped by FoodBank SA. These organisations, especially those involved with income-generating activities are prioritised to discourage a pattern of dependency. In addition, organisations sign an agreement which holds them accountable and prohibits them from selling foodstuffs delivered by FoodBank SA for profit.
The tragedy is that FoodBank SA can only meet 20% of its beneficiaries’ needs. Currently there is a waiting list of 1 500 organisations that require their assistance, which is why this important project needs the institutionalised support of government and the private sector. Moreover their example of redistributing wasted food should be adopted by the likes of the film industry, restaurants and other large businesses that produce excess food.
Food banking is commonly practiced in more than 40 countries around the world and although relatively new in South Africa, these are the kinds of banks our country needs to invest in.
To donate funds, food or time, go to FoodBank SA.
Read about the creative ways South Africans alleviate poverty every week from the Impumelelo Social Innovations Centre, the country’s repository for solutions that improve quality of life for the poor. Visit impumelelo.org.za