As we come to the end of a very demanding, exciting, and fulfilling 2024, I would like to thank all our food and financial donors, strategic partners, staff, and board for being part of this incredible movement.

The model we implement is simple, yet powerful in so many ways, and is able to heal both people and the planet. While there is still much hard work ahead to convince more food system actors to donate instead of dump edible food; to convince government to actively support and provide incentives in order to scale this model, and for exciting innovation to be developed once scale is reached, much has already been achieved and we should celebrate the victories, however small.

Here are some highlights we would like to share with you:

• We celebrated our 15th anniversary this year

• We launched our Food Gardens Connect programme, teaching unemployed people to grow their own food, providing them with seedlings and starter packs, and offering a guaranteed buy-back for their produce

• We formed strategic partnerships with Grow Great and the Department of Health so that we could expand our Mother and Child Nutrition programme to include more underweight mothers and malnourished children across the country

• We were able to respond to various disasters, providing warm meals and food parcels to affected communities in KZN, the Eastern Cape, and the Western Cape

• We received enough food from our awesome food donors to provide all our 2,500 beneficiary organisations with bulk food groceries every month

• The generous support from our financial donors meant that we could achieve the above goals

As we say farewell to 2024, we look forward to your continued partnership in 2025, as we aim to reach even greater milestones together, making sure that we improve the lives of vulnerable people in under-served communities.

We wish you all a blessed festive season and a joyous new year.

See you on the other side!

Andy Du Plessis: Managing Director of FoodForward SA