Food redistribution organisation FoodForward South Africa says the race to feed South Africa must turn from a marathon to a sprint.

This is owing to the emerging risks of civil unrest and increase in crime related to food scarcity as a result of the lockdown.

FoodForward says lockdown restrictions have unintentionally caused a disruption to the regular good distribution patterns and reduced or removed the income of many breadwinners.

While several formal and informal projects are under way at national and local levels to secure food availability to vulnerable households, the solutions seem not to spread far and wide enough.

The Institute of Risk Management South Africa late in March communicated the civil unrest and crime risks around food scarcity that have been arising.

The institute suggests that the best possible solution to this risk is not the establishment of new initiatives but the immediate significant support to an organisation with an established national footprint and ability to scale, such as FoodForward.

FoodFoward has been redistributing edible surplus food groceries since 2003 and operates as part of the international Global Foodbank Network. The organisation has a verified beneficiary network of more than 1 000 charities, which serve about 400 000 people daily across the country.

“Our permit as an essential services provider has allowed us to continue delivering nutritious food at R0.85 a meal to vulnerable communities during the lockdown period. We have had to radically ramp up our food and non-food groceries donation, collection and delivery efforts so that a health crisis does not turn into a food crisis,” says FoodForward MD Andy du Plessis.

The organisation late in March made a public call for R50-million to help address all the underserved rural communities in the country. So far, FoodForward has raised R14-million to this end, but more funds are required to supply food everywhere it is needed and quell outbreaks of civil unrest and theft.