At FoodForward SA’s annual Stakeholder event, we brought together a dynamic network of partners to celebrate our top financial and food donors – recognising the crucial role they play in securing more food for communities in need.
More than a moment of recognition, the event highlighted the power of partnership. With stakeholders from across retail, supply chain, agriculture, logistics, environmental, and food safety sectors in one room, there was a shared sense of momentum and purpose, a reminder that real progress depends on collaboration across the entire food system.
Recognising Our Leading Donors
We proudly acknowledged the top contributors for the 2025/2026 financial year:
Top Food Donors:
- Woolworths, OneFarm Share & Pick’n Pay
Top Financial Donors:
- Food Lover’s Market, Engen & The Global FoodBanking Network
A Shared Understanding of the Challenge
A standout moment was the panel discussion – both insightful and inspiring. It reinforced that South Africa’s food crisis is not simply about supply, but a complex systems challenge.
Panellists unpacked the drivers of food insecurity, structural constraints to growth, and the urgent need for behaviour change to ensure edible surplus food is redirected, not wasted. With leaders across food safety, food loss and waste, environmental, agricultural, and supply chain sectors sharing openly, the conversation pointed clearly to one thing: solutions lie in coordinated, collective action.
Moving Forward, Together
We extend our sincere thanks to our outstanding panellists – Pavitray Pillay from WWF South Africa, Head of Business Development and Marketing, Dr. Noxolo Gqada, Strategy Lead – Hold My Hand Accelerator for Children & Teens, Dr. Nicola Jenkin, WRAP: South Africa Impact Lead and Technical advisor to the SA Food Loss and Waste Initiative, Prof Reza Daniels, Dean of Economics: Stellenbosch University and Former SALDRU MD – our research partner in the 2026 ‘State of Household Food Insecurity Report’ and Ravi Pillay from Wits Business School: Food Safety Leadership Initiative and FFSA Board Member, for generously sharing their time and knowledge.
The energy in the room made one thing clear: when we work together, we can unlock real, scalable solutions to solve food insecurity!
