High food prices have affected approximately 16 million people, especially female and youth-headed households. The study has identified the Eastern Cape province as the epicentre.

FoodForward SA Managing Director, Andy du Plessis says there is an urgent need for collective interventions.

“So, it’s a piece of research that took 18 months to complete and what we were able to do was we did just over 750 in-person interviews with people that receive food services from our beneficiary organization network across the country.

And what we wanted to do was get deeper insights into household food insecurity.

So, what we found was and although this is information we know, people’s buying patterns have changed. They buy cheaper foods. People are eating smaller meals so that the food can stretch.

But what we find the found that’s come out of this research now is that the severity of food insecurity has deepened and worsened,” he said.

–SABC–