By Marietjie Brown, Sustainability & Government Affairs Lead Africa, Middle East and Türkiye

Nearly 1 000 children have died from severe malnutrition in South Africa over just 18 months, a stark and heartbreaking reality recently reported by Daily Maverick. Even one child lost to hunger is too many. But nearly a thousand lives cut short in just a year and a half is unconscionable. It is a definitive wake-up call: food insecurity in South Africa and across the region, is not an abstract issue, it is an urgent crisis that demands accountability and collective action.

The world is making strides in combating food insecurity. In July, the World Health Organisation (WHO) revealed a drop in hunger rates across the world’s population, from 8.5% in 2023 to 8.2% last year.

This percentage may seem small, but when placed against 8.1 billion people across the world, this translates to at least 24 million people no longer facing malnutrition, starvation and hunger.

But WHO’s report, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, also revealed that in most sub-regions of Africa and Western Asia, food security is waning. Many African countries continue to face prolonged food crises, with the WHO’s data estimating 307 million people across the continent, 20% of the African population, faced hunger in 2024.

More concerning for our region, SADC (Southern African Development Community) featured prominently in the report. Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Malawi all experienced the terrible effects of food pricing volatility, exacerbated by inflationary pressures (or hyper-inflation in Zimbabwe), climate shocks and fuel price increases.

Even people not facing starvation and those living in the economic hubs in Africa, are diving deeper into their pockets as the cost of food continues to rise. This isn’t just a feeling one has when they notice their rising total amount when paying for groceries, this is a worldwide concern, with the World Bank’s 2025 food security data showing food price inflation exceeded overall inflation in 60% of 161 surveyed countries. Food is becoming more expensive and people’s earnings, limited as they are in Africa, are not stretching as far as they once did.

As food insecurity becomes rife, we cannot simply rely on government interventions and the agricultural sector to solve the issue. The food supply chain is exactly that, a chain of industries that ensure food makes its way from “farm to fork”. Every sector involved needs to bolster this chain or we risk exponential suffering.

The logistics and packaging industries have a vital role to play. According to the World Bank, a massive 37% of food produced in Africa is lost or wasted due to inadequate storage. The right transportation of these foodstuffs and better processing, durable packaging and temperature control i.e. refrigeration, could massively mitigate this horrendous waste.

Airtight, insulated and clean packaging is proven to slow down such losses, helping to preserve food as it makes its way cross-country. Meanwhile, secure packaging and containers protect food, especially during transport, reducing damages – meaning they can reach more distant markets in a sellable and therefore consumable condition.

At CHEP, part of the Brambles Group, we operate as a circular business model, specialising in the sharing and reuse of equipment including hundreds of millions of pallets, crates and containers.

This reusable equipment helps to eliminate single-use packaging and empty transport miles, while lowering operational costs for businesses who work with us. By offering even the smallest of enterprises solutions for product movement, our goal is to reduce waste and help these businesses access new markets and build resilient supply chains.

While this is a core part of our business, that doesn’t mean other institutions, who aren’t as focused on sustainability, can’t join in the fight against hunger and food wastage. By partnering, funding or even just giving your time to purpose-driven institutions, you can make an incredible difference. By working closely with foodbanks around the world, Brambles was able to help feed more than 20.6 million people last year using rescued food.

In South Africa, CHEPs contribution to this growing figure was through our ongoing collaboration with FoodForward SA, an incredible nonprofit organisation that recovers quality, edible surplus food from the consumer goods’ supply chain and distributes it to thousands of community organisations across the country.

During the 2024/2025 financial year, FoodForward SA distributed 83 million meals, reaching 935,000 people daily through a network of 2,500 Beneficiary Organisations. All food items were transported using CHEPs reusable assets, allowing FoodForward SA to minimise its environmental footprint and enhance efficiency throughout their distribution network.

The fight against hunger in Southern Africa is complex, but it is not insurmountable. Tackling it requires more than agricultural reform or government intervention, it demands a unified, cross-sector commitment to strengthening every link in the food supply chain. From farmers to logistics providers, from packaging producers to purpose-driven NGOs, each has a role to play in ensuring food reaches those who need it most.

Multisectoral collaboration such as those between CHEP, FoodForward SA and countless community organisations prove that collaboration can deliver a real and measurable impact.

Through cooperation and a shared sense of purpose, together we can transform local food chains from functional to exceptional, stemming the hunger inequality that continues to affect our region.