Summit reveals excessive food waste in South Africa

South Africa produces enough food to feed its entire population, yet a large portion of it goes to waste.

FOOD WASTE IN SOUTH AFRICA

The Impact Summit 2024, held in Johannesburg on 8 October, addressed various topics, such as sustainable eating, environmental impact and food waste.

Speaking at the summit, Andy du Plessis – managing director at Food Forward SA, a non-profit organisation that collects and delivers quality food to beneficiary organisations across South Africa – said there was no need for a single South African to go hungry.

In a country where more than half of the population lives below the poverty line, a significant amount of food is in fact wasted. Though 31 million tons of food is produced annually, a third of this is wasted.

“We live in a country where we produce enough food to feed every single citizen, yet one third of the good food that is produced, along with the resources needed to produce it, is wasted.” Du Plessis said.

This exacerbates South Africa’s ongoing food insecurity and impacts the climate crisis.

FOOD LOSS AND WASTE

Food loss and waste (FLW) is most common in sugar crops, cereal and fruit and vegetables, according to Mamogala Musekene, deputy director-general of chemical and waste management at the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and Environment (DFFE).

She said 40 million people could be fed from the quantity of South Africa’s Food loss and waste.

Globally, 13.2% of food produced is lost between harvest and retail. And 19% of total global food production is wasted in households, food service and in retail.

Moreover, households waste over 1 billion meals worth of edible food every day.

ENVIRONMENTAL COST

Environmental Behaviour Change Practitioner and SASSI Manager for Business Development at WWF South Africa, Pavitray Pillay, said that wasting food in a water-scarce country like South Africa is particularly irresponsible.

She said that huge amounts of water are required to produce products like milk and meat that humans consume.

“When you toss one litre of milk, you waste 6 full baths of water. That’s about 720 litres of water.” Pillay said.

She also said that just one wasted mouthful of steak equates to the same amount of water used when running a household dishwasher 22 times.

In a water-scarce country like South Africa, it is inadvisable to be wasting water.

OTHER IMPACTS OF FOOD WASTE

The human effort and the energy that go into producing food are also wasted when food is disposed of.

Furthermore, by wasting food, we also impact soil health. This is because the soil is stripped of nutrients if it is constantly used to produce crops.

Significantly, wasted food produces 8 to 10% of the world’s global greenhouse gases, which impacts climate change.

“We are living beyond our planetary boundaries at the moment. We are already living past one and a half planets. We don’t have one and a half planets, we only have one. Food loss and waste makes the situation worse. The more food we waste, the more expensive food will become and in a South African context we can’t afford that.” Pillay concluded.