{"id":40124,"date":"2026-07-21T07:45:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T05:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=40124"},"modified":"2026-07-21T08:51:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T06:51:45","slug":"sa-waste-3bn-in-food-annually","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sa-waste-3bn-in-food-annually\/","title":{"rendered":"SA waste $3bn in food annually"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>South Africa (SA) throws away an estimated $3 billion worth of food every year, even as millions of people struggle to afford groceries.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>A new report by surplus-food marketplace, Refreshi, says consumers have saved millions of rand by buying discounted surplus food instead of seeing it go to waste.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>But food security organisations say tackling the country&#8217;s food waste crisis will require changes across the entire food supply chain.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The contrast is hard to ignore. Every year, billions of Rand worth of edible food is discarded across SA, while many families are forced to stretch every rand to afford basic groceries.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>For some consumers, like Noble Makwela, the situation raises questions about whether more can be done to make surplus food available before it is thrown away.<\/p>\n<p>Noble Makwela says:\u00a0&#8220;It&#8217;s a\u00a0troubling conundrum, throwing or discarding billions of Rand worth of edible food each year, while many households are battling with putting food on the table. I know many supermarkets I shop at do mark down some of the items which are too good to go to landfills, but more can be done to make sure that no household goes a day without a meal. It is a devastating reality and frustrating.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>Food rescue organisations say the problem extends beyond consumers and retailers.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>They argue that surplus food should be viewed as a valuable resource within the food supply chain, rather than waste that is only dealt with once it reaches the end of its shelf life.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Head of Strategy and Marketing at SA Harvest Cassandra Potgieter explains: &#8220;The biggest shift is to treat edible surplus as part of a food supply chain, so from the start, as opposed to a waste problem that&#8217;s only addressed at the end. So it basically means that earlier visibility of surplus, simple and really reliable donation processes, strong food safety controls, particularly cold chain and warehouse capacity, especially in the food rescue space, efficient transport.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>One company attempting to address the issue through technology is Refreshi.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The startup has launched a marketplace that allows consumers to buy discounted surplus food from participating supermarkets, restaurants and bakeries before it is discarded. Founder of Refreshi, Jakob Holbak says SA produces enough food, but much of it never reaches consumers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In SA, 10 million tons of food goes to waste every year, and it&#8217;s around 30 to 40% of all food that&#8217;s produced that never ends up on the table. On the other hand, you have 15 to 20 million people that live on a very tight budget. and cost of living is going up. So we kind of have a dilemma here. There&#8217;s actually enough food available. It&#8217;s just not being connected. And that&#8217;s what we&#8217;re trying to address with Refreshi, is that we connect surplus food from hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, coffee shops, bakeries, et cetera, with consumers at reduced prices through surprise bags.&#8221;<\/p><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The company says it has expanded from a handful of partner stores to hundreds nationwide within just over a year.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It believes the model could help reduce food waste while easing pressure on household grocery budgets.<\/p>\n<p>Holbak says: &#8220;We started in March last year in Stellenbosch with seven stores and a little bit more than a year later we are now up having 700 stores on the platform and are saving 1000 meals every day. I think if we look ahead. Our plan, of course, is to have thousands of stores on the platform in SA, not only covering all the major cities, but any part of SA, and save millions of meals every year and make sure that everyone is winning. Consumers get access to more affordable meals. Stores get extra revenue for food that otherwise would have thrown out and more foot traffic in the store. And the environment is also winning because less good food ends up in landfills.&#8221;<\/p><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>SA has committed to halving food waste by 2030 in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>But experts say achieving that target will require greater collaboration between government, retailers, food rescue organisations and consumers to ensure edible food reaches people instead of landfill.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;ChannelAfrica, Lebogang Mabange&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21188,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-40124","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"SA throws away an estimated $3 billion worth of food","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/40124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/40124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40138,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/40124\/revisions\/40138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=40124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}