FOOD LOSS AND WASTE: DRAFT STRATEGY OUT FOR COMMENT

FOOD LOSS AND WASTE: DRAFT STRATEGY OUT FOR COMMENT

• 19 September 2023
• Environmental Law
• SA Legal Academy

Please note: On 1 December the Department of Forestry, Fisheries & the Environment gazetted a notice extending the commentary period to 18 December 2023. 

Input is sought by 19 October 2023 on a draft strategy for reducing food loss and wastage. Developed by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries & the Environment under the National Environmental Management Act, 2008, the document’s executive summary notes, among other things, that:

• in 2017, South Africa generated 9m tonnes of food waste (one third of the country’s organic waste, which in turn constituted 50% of all general waste that year), and that
• in 2021, nearly 12% of households ‘were experiencing hunger’.

Worryingly, however, while most food loss apparently occurs prior to distribution, marketing and retail, it is not clear precisely where and why.

Possibly with that in mind, the draft strategy explores ways of curbing food loss occurring immediately post-harvest and at retail level – as well as at other points along the production and supply chain. Food recovery and beneficiation are discussed in the context of a circular economy, as one of the proposed new strategy’s key pillars.

• draft strategy

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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