The man tasked with ensuring that every South African goes to bed on a full stomach yesterday told a conference on food security in Africa that the country dumped nine million tons of food every year.
Molatelo Mamadi was addressing pan-African food security experts gathered in the International Convention Centre, in East London.
Mamadi, a director at the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, told delegates this mountain of dumped food was enough to feed 250000 poor people every year.
While a lot of the food was wasted through the farm-to-plate value chain, big retail stores such as Shoprite, Checkers and Spar were responsible for food wastage.
He commended Woolworths for giving away its leftover food to charity organisations.
“If you look at our retail sector, they would rather throw the food away than give it to charity, with the exception of Woolworths.
“Woolworths’ roast a chicken and if it is not bought that day you can be sure that it is going to charity and that is a good gesture from Woolworths.
“But you go to Shoprite, Checkers – they can sell that chicken say after five or six days, which I think is actually immoral.
“If you go to Spar, they will sell bananas for the whole week and when they are about to rot, then they will reduce the price and put out a red tag that says ‘reduced’ instead of them taking the food to a charity organisation as a form of social responsibility,” Mamadi said. He viewed retail wastage as “an ethical issue to rather throw away food because you don’t want to give it away for free”.
He said retail stores also sometimes threw away canned beans and fruit if the can was dented.
“There are a lot of charity organisations in South Africa that are in need of this food to give to the poor.
“Some organisations are even approaching these retail stores directly to say ‘give us what you won’t use’.
“We all have a social responsibility not to waste food.
“Take the amount of food you dish up for yourself and end up not finishing and throwing away... this speaks to the issue of creating awareness,” he said.
He said other forms of wastage were spillages of maize in the harvesting, processing, packaging and transporting stages.
“Food inflation is a serious concern and has been exacerbated by the issue of two successive years of drought,” Mamadi said.
“The situation is actually very dire at the moment.
“More than 60% of the income of poor households is spent on buying food.
“However, food wastage is a serious challenge.”
The conference began on Wednesday and concluded yesterday.
It was the first of its kind in South Africa and was organised by the University of Fort Hare, in partnership with the University of Pretoria.
It was aimed at finding solutions to food sustainability and security for the continent’s ever-growing population, amid environmental challenges and geopolitical issues.
Delegates who attended came from Zambia, Malawi, Rwanda, Burundi, Lesotho, Swaziland, Sudan, Nigeria, Mauritius, Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa.
Dumping mountains of unsold food is ‘immoral’
Molatelo Mamadi was addressing pan-African food security experts gathered in the International Convention Centre, in East London.
Mamadi, a director at the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, told delegates this mountain of dumped food was enough to feed 250000 poor people every year.
While a lot of the food was wasted through the farm-to-plate value chain, big retail stores such as Shoprite, Checkers and Spar were responsible for food wastage.
He commended Woolworths for giving away its leftover food to charity organisations.
“If you look at our retail sector, they would rather throw the food away than give it to charity, with the exception of Woolworths.
“Woolworths’ roast a chicken and if it is not bought that day you can be sure that it is going to charity and that is a good gesture from Woolworths.
“But you go to Shoprite, Checkers – they can sell that chicken say after five or six days, which I think is actually immoral.
“If you go to Spar, they will sell bananas for the whole week and when they are about to rot, then they will reduce the price and put out a red tag that says ‘reduced’ instead of them taking the food to a charity organisation as a form of social responsibility,” Mamadi said. He viewed retail wastage as “an ethical issue to rather throw away food because you don’t want to give it away for free”.
He said retail stores also sometimes threw away canned beans and fruit if the can was dented.
“There are a lot of charity organisations in South Africa that are in need of this food to give to the poor.
“Some organisations are even approaching these retail stores directly to say ‘give us what you won’t use’.
“We all have a social responsibility not to waste food.
“Take the amount of food you dish up for yourself and end up not finishing and throwing away... this speaks to the issue of creating awareness,” he said.
He said other forms of wastage were spillages of maize in the harvesting, processing, packaging and transporting stages.
“Food inflation is a serious concern and has been exacerbated by the issue of two successive years of drought,” Mamadi said.
“The situation is actually very dire at the moment.
“More than 60% of the income of poor households is spent on buying food.
“However, food wastage is a serious challenge.”
The conference began on Wednesday and concluded yesterday.
It was the first of its kind in South Africa and was organised by the University of Fort Hare, in partnership with the University of Pretoria.
It was aimed at finding solutions to food sustainability and security for the continent’s ever-growing population, amid environmental challenges and geopolitical issues.
Delegates who attended came from Zambia, Malawi, Rwanda, Burundi, Lesotho, Swaziland, Sudan, Nigeria, Mauritius, Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa.
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