We at the African Food Security Urban Network (www.afsun.org) have been working on urban food security and food systems within the Southern African context. Within South Africa we have undergone rapid supermarketization of the food system, which has shifted consumption and production trends within the country.
While there has been much focus on reducing post-harvest food loss within the region, and increased interest in reduction food waste at the household scale, the role of the supermarket itself as a source of food waste has not received substantial attention. The work of Food Bank in South Africa has been important in deferring some food waste from the supermarket sector to agencies that support food insecure households, however this organization addresses only a small proportion of the food waste generated by the sector.
In 2012 one of my Masters students completed her thesis which examined issues of policy and practice which acted as barriers to the wider deferment of supermarket food waste from landfill. It was particularly interested in the reframing of food waste as potential resource. Our municipal waste policies in Cape Town that seek to defer waste from landfill address only municipal waste and household recycling, neglecting the retail sector as a source of waste that could (in theory) be more easily separated and re-used than household waste. It became apparent through the course of the thesis that there were disconnects between government policy and its framing of waste and the mechanisms to enact these policies. In addition, the supermarkets were not consistent in the transfer of their sustainability policies from head office to store level and although waste was framed as a potential resource at the strategic level, the day-to-day management of waste within the store reduced waste to just something to be gotten rid of as quickly as possible. This made it difficult to conceive of any other waste management system other than the efficient systems that simply took food waste to landfill.The following URL provides access to the thesis: http://srvrhldig001.uct.ac.za/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=88582
I would happily share a link to this thesis should there be interest.
Jane
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Dr Jane Battersby-Lennard
African Centre for Cities,
University of Cape Town.
Jane Battersby