Shoprite turns food waste into animal feed to nourish thousands of cattle daily

Lester Kiewit speaks to Sanjeev Raghubir, Head of Group Sustainability & CSI at the Shoprite Group.

Listen below. 

What happens to food waste not fit for human consumption?

The Shoprite Group coverts this food waste into animal feed for thousands of cattle daily.

"Items like rice, maize, pasta, grains - typically dry ingredients that's blended to form a high-quality feed by an animal nutritionist that's fed to the cattle." 

Sanjeev Raghubir, Head of Group Sustainability & CSI - Shoprite Group

Over the past six months, Shoprite South Africa has provided food to up to 3000 cattle by turning 1000 tonnes of food waste into animal feed.

Raghubir says the food waste selected for the animal feed remains safe for consumption because food safety and hygiene is an important factor - no torn bags of rice or maize goes into the cattle feed, while any surplus food which is still fit for human consumption is donated to registered beneficiary organisations. 

"It's important to understand the difference between the date labels. You have best before, use-by, expiry and sell-by date labels - very often which is confused to mean that you can't consume a product after its best before or sell-by date - where we find food approaching it's sell-by date, we donate that to charities across South Africa."

Sanjeev Raghubir, Head of Group Sustainability & CSI - Shoprite Group

Raghubir mentions that last year, the Shoprite Group donated to more than 544 charities with food valued at over R225 million.

"We understand how desperate our communities are, how vulnerable people are and in that way, it's almost a sin to confine food that's fit for consumption to landfills."

Sanjeev Raghubir, Head of Group Sustainability & CSI - Shoprite Group

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