A food rescue and hunger relief organisation SA Harvest has delivered over 20 million meals by rescuing 6.4 million kilograms of good food from different companies that would have gone to waste.
This as the world commemorates World Hunger Day on Saturday.
According to the World Wildlife Fund almost 10 million tonnes of food go to waste every year in South Africa, while 20 million people go to sleep hungry every night.
The organisation has delivered to communities that have been severely impacted by the floods. A resident at Reservoir Hills informal settlement in Durban, Nikiwe Zondi says it is difficult to feed her family with the current food price increases.
“Hunger is real and food has become very expensive even before the floods it was very difficult, we couldn’t afford to buy proper food for the family. We really appreciate the work these organisations are doing in providing food for us because now we can provide food for our children so they can eat and go to school like other children.”
Malnutrition remains a challenge
Director of SA Harvest Lindsay Hopkins says the biggest problem they face is getting food with a balanced diet to help address the issue of malnutrition being experienced by many of the recipients.
“It is bad and the biggest thing for us as well is malnutrition so unfortunately, we’re really struggling to get balance diets out into the communities. We do work with emerging farmers, we partner with Hello Choice, they’ve got a one farm share project and so we are able to get a fresh produce which then compliments the dry produce and the maize to give to communities. I just wish there was a specific call to action, a lot more practical steps I think, the more systemic intervention has to be addressed. Food insecurity in this country is just completely unnecessary.”
