The government must consider removing VAT on certain crucial food products — especially protein-rich items favoured by lower-income households — to improve food security, which could worsen over the next decade if immediate interventions are not implemented with speed, warned Shoprite in its food security index report.
According to the report, though the country was able to improve food security in the past, more South Africans experienced deeper food access problems in 2023 compared with any other year between 2012 and 2023.
The report defines food security as a situation “where all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for a healthy life”. Hunger continues to be a serious issue in the country, with more people facing starvation. The biggest population-level challenge has shifted to ensuring people have access to a sufficiently nutritious diet. Better nutrition in children prevents stunting, while ensuring they receive enough kcals to learn in school, according to the report.
The report found that one in four of the poorest households reported children in their homes went hungry in 2023. Male-headed households have lower risks of hunger at 12.5% in rural areas and 8.7% in urban ones than female-headed households (16.7% in rural areas and 11.9% in urban ones).
The number of people in South Africa not meeting the minimum energy requirements (1,834 kcal) grew from 1.8-million in 2001 to 4.7-million in 2021. Overall food availability declined from a peak of 2.8t of raw food per person per year in 2017 to 2.6t in 2022.
Sanjeev Raghubir, chief sustainability officer for the Shoprite Group, said that, after 30 years of democracy, “it is unfathomable that hunger remains one of the top socioeconomic issues facing our country”.
Households require substantial support in establishing food gardens with nutritious vegetables and fruit.
— Prof Dieter von Fintel, Stellenbosch University
To increase support for access to more nutritious food for young children, women and households, the National Treasury must strongly consider zero-rating VAT on certain crucial food products, especially protein-rich items used by lower-income households.
There is now a process under way to reconsider the food items that are VAT-exempt and potentially expand the zero-rated VAT list. Multiple stakeholders have argued for adding affordable protein sources to this list — which is supported by the meat and poultry industry. “This needs to be urgently considered and put into action, considering both the hunger and nutrition problem in South Africa,” said Prof Dieter von Fintel, vice-dean for research, internationalisation and postgraduate affairs at Stellenbosch University.
He said diets needed to be more affordable and nutritious. “Often affordable food is not necessarily nutritious, but there are food groups that are both nutritious and affordable.” These foods include chicken livers, tinned fish, eggs, peanut butter, dark green leafy vegetables such as spinach, and indigenous green leaves. We shouldn’t underestimate the role of indigenous foods in supplying nutrition to South Africa.”
Those indigenous foods should be grown in more gardens, he said.
According to the report, hunger is much higher in rural areas, with affordability of food a big problem. In the early 2000s, there was a rapid decline in hunger — noticeable mostly in Limpopo, Mpumalanga, the Eastern Cape, North West and KwaZulu-Natal. These provinces are more rural and have more land available for food gardens. “Households require substantial support in establishing food gardens with nutritious vegetables and fruit,” Von Fintel said.
He said the country’s high unemployment rate and high food inflation were some of the risks for food security. “Food inflation is far more rapid than general inflation. Households divert incomes to cope with other financial needs and sacrifice food budgets. Even though they might have enough food, they start buying cheaper food that might be less nutritious.”
In its latest essential food-pricing monitoring report, the Competition Commission states that there are several positive signs of easing food-cost pressures throughout the economy, including the relaxation of load-shedding, the strengthening of the rand against the US dollar, and decreasing fuel prices.
These factors have been regularly cited as among the leading cost drivers that have kept food prices higher for longer. If they continue to ease, food prices should go down. “However, the commission has observed that prices remain high and are increasing at a rate that is unaffordable for low-income households.”
The commission also says retailers have not fully passed on the higher producer prices.
The Shoprite food index said economic and physical access to food was arguably the most important dimension of food security. Without good access, it would be hard to achieve many of the higher-order nutritional needs. As with food access, there has been an increase in the proportion of households reporting low food variety since 2019. By 2023, 23.6% of households said they were consuming a lower variety of foods than usual because of economic constraints.
According to the report, South Africa has a shortage of good nutrition data. There is a need for better, more frequent surveys and improved nutritional outcomes data to track the wellbeing of South African households, and especially female-headed households and children, over time, said Von Fintel.
Raghubir said: the findings of the South African food security index 2024 “add further fuel to our daily obsession with affordability and accessibility, to ensure our most price-sensitive customers can put food on the table”.
In its 2024 financial year, Shoprite invested R438m in corporate social investment activities. This included donating surplus food and goods worth R234m to more than 500 beneficiary organisations across Africa.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.