Overview
- Campaigns led by the Union Against Hunger and allied groups have intensified public pressure for legal accountability and policy fixes to hunger, framing it as avoidable and calling for enforceable remedies.
- Advocates point to a clear affordability gap for working households and grant recipients, citing March calculations that a general worker on the 2026 minimum wage falls short of the reported average household food-basket cost.
- Operational barriers — broken cold chains, limited warehousing, lack of data and coordination — are identified as the main reasons safe, edible surplus is not reaching communities rather than a shortfall in national production.
- Policy moves now in play include the SAHRC’s National Investigative Hearing into food systems and the SANS 2088 draft standard on food donation and redistribution, both of which could shape business practices and funding priorities.
- Organisations such as SA Harvest say their food-rescue network has moved millions of kilograms of surplus since 2019, but they warn that scaling this work needs sustained investment in trucks, cold rooms, storage, compliance systems and community partners to make everyday access reliable.