ORGANIC WASTE
Food manufacturers and retailers commit to
REDUCING FOOD WASTE In a bid to adhere to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal to halve global food waste by 2030, the Consumer Goods Council of South Africa (CGCSA) has launched the South African food loss and waste voluntar y agreement, committing food manufacturers and retailers to waste reduction effor ts.
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urrent estimates show that about 10 million tonnes of local agricultural production in South Africa is wasted each year. This is equivalent to an estimated R60 billion a year, or about 2% of GDP. In a country where an estimated 14 million people go to bed hungry every night, this is a “monumental unnecessary waste, which cannot be allowed to continue,” says Matlou Setati, executive, CGCSA Food Safety Initiative (FSI). The food loss and waste agreement brings together CGCSA; the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition; and the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries. It will provide opportunities for public awareness campaigns to highlight the state of food waste and its impacts on the environment and human health. It commits CGCSA food manufacturing and retail members to: • reducing food loss and waste in South Africa by 50% by 2030 • adopting the food utilisation hierarchy, which, first, prioritises improved food utilisation and food loss and waste reduction and, second, the redistribution of edible, nutritious surplus food for human consumption, and to enable secondary markets for surplus food • identifying food surplus and waste management
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solutions that respond to a circular economy and sustainable food systems agenda. Setati says they have also put in place shorter-term goals, which they want to achieve within the next 10 years. This includes establishing a baseline for a more target-based measurable approach by 2022 and a 28% reduction of food waste by 2026.
Where it all started The DTIC started conceptualising the establishment of a voluntary agreement to prevent food wastage by both manufacturers and retailers in South Africa back in 2012. The initiative is thus the culmination of efforts made since then. In 2015, the DTIC approached CGCSA to lobby its members to sign a voluntary agreement on food waste in line with both the UN goal to halve global good waste by 2030 and another commitment by the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF) to reduce global food waste by half by 2025. CGCSA-FSI, together with the DTIC, subsequently submitted a proposal for funding from the EU through the SA-EU Dialogue Facility for a study tour in Europe to engage with other organisations that have implemented similar programmes to reduce food waste and share best practices for implementation and trial in South Africa. The funding had a research component to evaluate the current status of food waste in South Africa and come up with levels of food currently wasted, in order to enable the industry and government to set informed reduction goals.
A moral obligation Gareth Ackerman, co-chair of CGCSA, says given that South Africa’s retailers sell approximately 80% of the food consumed in the country, they sit at a
