Companies like FoodForward SA and Ladles of Love are rescuing produce and redistributing it in vulnerable communities
Cape Town, South Africa (20 March 2026) – A full third of all the food we produce, about 10 million tonnes annually, ends up in landfills as waste, despite 70% of South African households facing moderate or severe food insecurity during the course of a year, according to research by WWF.
To raise awareness and combat food waste, companies such as FoodForward SA and Ladles of Love have been recovering food and redistributing it to people in vulnerable communities.
We spent some time with the two companies to capture how they are helping to address food insecurity.
FoodForward SA (FFSA) works with farmers, manufacturers and retailers to recover edible surplus food. It distributes almost 21,000 tonnes of food annually, through 2,519 organisations across the country. It estimates that over a million meals are served daily through these partnerships.
In the Western Cape, donations are received at its warehouse and national head office in Lansdowne, Cape Town.
Andy du Plessis, managing director of FFSA, said, “Despite remarkable global advances in food production, vast quantities of edible surplus food are still discarded every day, while countless children go without a meal – sometimes for days. The devastating irony is that the food needed to save lives exists, yet remains out of reach for those who need it most.”
FFSA delivers supplies to central pick-up points where beneficiary organisations collect it. At Beautiful Gate in Philippi, food parcels are handed out as part of its Mother and Child Nutrition project to pregnant women, nursing mothers, and children under five.
On the day we visited, each parcel contained maize meal, samp, soup mix, tinned fish, soya mince, sunflower oil, peanut butter, jam, flour, baked beans, rice, sorghum porridge and a tray of eggs.
Ladles of Love, based in Epping, Cape Town, has a unique approach. Through its Feed the Soil programme, leftover and inedible food waste from homes and businesses is collected and converted into compost. This compost is then donated to community gardens which grow organic vegetables and greens. And so a cycle is completed, from discarded leftovers back to healthy fresh food.
“The beauty of this programme is when you see how food turns back into soil that regrows food,” says Daniele Diliberto, founder of Ladles of Love.
For a once-off fee of R200, Ladles of Love provides sawdust, bukashi and a container to store leftovers and food waste. At the Blue Route Mall every Tuesday, Arthur Ganco collects the full bins and swaps them for empty ones. This waste, more than 298 tons so far, is converted into compost for growing organic vegetables.
“For me the most important thing is that the waste that we generate does not go to landfills but is used productively. Everybody must do his bit,” said Jan Maree, receiving his new bin at the mall.
The produce for sale is from community farmers who also get the compost through the project.
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