FoodForward South Africa, a long-standing member of The Global FoodBanking Network, is celebrating their 15^º anniversary this year. As the largest and one of the longest-running food banks on the African continent, FoodForward SA has not only strengthened food security in South Africa—their influence has been felt across borders, as they serve as a mentor organization to newer food banks in sub-Saharan Africa and beyond.

Andy Du Plessis, FoodForward SA’s managing director, recently took a moment from his busy schedule to reflect on the food bank’s past, discuss the present, and look toward the future.

GFN: Happy 15^º anniversary to FoodForward South Africa! Can you tell me a little bit about Food Forward’s story?

Andy Du Plessis: In 2003, Bianca Du Plessis [no relation], a young university graduate got a job at one of the film companies, and she noticed huge amounts of food were wasted after film shoots. They dumped everything they didn’t eat. So, Bianca gave up a job in the film industry, and she started a nonprofit called Feedback Food Redistribution. Because of her context in the film industry, she went around to all the film sets, collected the food, and took that food to community organizations in her own vehicle.

And then one day, Alan Gilbertson—who is now one of our Board members—read an article about her work in one of the newspapers. He met with Bianca and said, “Let me help.” What happened was, they took this model and combined it with the food banking model from The Global FoodBanking Network. In 2009, our food bank was formed, and that’s how the organization started. We changed our name to FoodForward SA in 2017.

What were your first years at FoodForward SA like?

I joined in 2013, four years after the organization started. It was a difficult time at first. By then they’d had four different managing directors in four years. I must confess, I probably would’ve thought three or four or five times about leaving during that time.

But we set a range of objectives and a solid strategic plan, and we had amazing support from The Global FoodBanking Network. They sponsored us to see what food banks look like in the United States. And that was really an eyeopener. So, we grew from there, building a good foundation, and we were able to then take this model, this beautiful, amazing food banking model and make sure we scaled it and replicated it in other parts of our country.

I’m glad I stuck it out. It was worth it, I must say, from the product we have now and what we’re able to do across South Africa, it was definitely worth it.

It sounds like there have been many changes since you joined FoodForward SA. What are the biggest changes you’ve seen?

Everything has changed. We were able to scale up and set up branches in all nine provinces, where previously we just had four. We have a massive fleet of vehicles that’s all paid for, which is quite nimble for recovering food. Most of that fleet was donated to us. We have a larger number of food donors donating into our network, and we’re more credible with them today than we were then. We’ve doubled our staff complement compared to a few years back. Also, we now have a network of 2,500 registered and vetted beneficiary organizations that receive food from us every month, and they collectively reach 920,000 vulnerable people every day. It’s 20 times what we were just a few years ago. Those are just some of the big changes we’ve seen here.

What are you most proud of during your tenure at FoodForward SA?

For me, there are three programs that stand out. The first is our FoodShare digital platform. It’s one-of-a-kind across the world, because it does quite a few things. It does banco de alimentos virtual, which there are quite a few platforms out there for that. But on top of that, we have our own digital monitoring and vetting of beneficiary organizations through FoodShare. We schedule the collections for the organizations to come and fetch their food through FoodShare as well. And then our entire database of the 2,500 organizations with demographics is housed in FoodShare. So for me, that that’s definitely a standout.

The second one is our Mobile Rural Distribution program. Every month, we take food out into rural communities, and it’s more cost effective than setting up costly infrastructure in those rural communities. We’ve got 29 rural communities where we reach over 200 towns and villages and a few hundred thousand people through that program.

And for me, the third one is our Mother and Child Nutrition program, given the scale of malnutrition and food insecurity in South Africa, which is one of the highest in the world, we make sure that stunted children under 5 years of age and their families receive the proper nutrition they need so that children can exit malnutrition.

How has FoodForward SA taken a mentorship role to newer food banks, and why is that important to your organization?

I think it’s important to support food banks on our continent because if South Africa is to succeed, then Africa as a continent must succeed. And for Africa to succeed, this model must be implemented across Africa. It’s a brilliant model. It’s a cost-effective model, especially with so much food that’s lost or wasted in every single country.

So it’s important that other food banks achieve success, so people can become healthy, and find jobs. And for food banks to grow, they need support. They need technical support, they need mentorship. They need advice on a number of fronts: operations, fundraising, HR, finances etc. Because we have that capacity in-house, it’s important that we share that with others so they can develop.

With the start of GFN’s Acelerador program in 2019, we had a whole number of food banks here to visit our operations and learn more about how we implement food banking. After that, we said to the food banks, feel free to contact us individually. We want to help. To see how they’ve grown has been amazing. And we are proud that in some small way, we were able to be a part of that success. It’s just beautiful to see them grow and develop.

How has GFN been helpful in terms of FoodForward SA’s growth and development?

I don’t think there would’ve been a FoodForward SA without GFN. Alan [Gilbertson] reached out to GFN for help in rolling this model out and understanding the components of the food bank model, and whether it would work in South Africa. [Cofounders] Bob Forney and Chris Restock came, and they helped investigate how the model would work with us. They flew down quite a few times to lend support and give guidance, and they held our hands. We wouldn’t be here without them.

So, in many ways, we owe a lot of our success to GFN: through technical support or just being able to bounce things off them. And if they don’t have the answers, there will be a food bank in the Network that does, and they can connect us to them. And the financial support from GFN has enabled us to scale up in many ways. When we opened branches in all the other provinces, GFN provided much-needed financial support. It was the material support we needed at the time in order to grow, and GFN was there. It’s a key relationship for us, and we are proud to be a member of the GFN Network.

What does the future look like for FoodForward South Africa? What does the next 15 years look like?

We’ve got an ambitious plan leading up to 2030 where we want to scale up and grow a number of programs. Firstly, FoodShare—we want to take it across the continent, and we are in the process of adjusting it to FoodShare Global, so that we can benefit other food banks on the continent and maybe see where we can implement it in the rest of the world.

We want to make sure that our network of partner beneficiary organizations grow. Although we support 2,500 organizations with food each month, around 30 million people are food insecure in South Africa. So, we want to make sure that we provide more food to more people across the country.

And we are finalizing what will be a first for South Africa, which is the South African Bureau of Standards Food Donations Framework. We want to use that document as our launchpad to implement a food donations bill for South Africa over the next three to five years. We think that once a food donations bill is enacted in South Africa, we will be able to unlock more of the 10 million tonnes of food, which is currently lost or wasted across our food system on an annual basis.

We have to grow. We have a responsibility to vulnerable South Africans to increase access to nutritious food and make sure that malnourished children and pregnant and nursing mothers who are underweight have better access to food. We’ve got a huge problem in South Africa, and we need to continue to make progress to address it.