FoodBank South Africa

What is Needed?

Food. FoodBank SA is rapidly building relationships with all of South Africa's largest national food companies and groceries, and is likely to be able to help deserving people to source food in most urban or peri-urban areas of the country.  We can also help you to understand how best to approach more local food suppliers to supplement any food we may be able to source for you.

Hungry People. We can provide you with advice as to how to most effectively meet the needs of the hungry people in your community and to decide on which programs to supply food to, such that you ensure that the food is being used appropriately

Logistics to Connect the Two. This is the most complicated part, and the approach taken will depend on the size and nature of your community.  In most instances a foodbank will need:

Warehouse space. Click here for a detailed checklist which may help you in selecting a suitable warehouse for food handling and storage.

People. You will need people for various roles:

• Governance. You need people to manage the project. The types of people ideally needed will depend on the nature of the legal vehicle you decide to use for your foodbank. Generally speaking, the more sophisticated the legal vehicle the greater the complexity of the management and governance team required. We can advise you about the most suitable legal structure and, based on this, the governance team which will be required. The governance would typically mostly comprise volunteers.
• Management. These are the people who supervise how the foodbank works. In the case of larger foodbanks, some of the management would typically be full-time employees, whereas small foodbanks may be run solely by volunteers.
• Staff. Again, this depends on the size of the foodbank but you may need:
  • drivers to collect food,
  • warehouse staff to handle, deface the product labelling, and sort the food,
  • distribution staff to arrange delivery to your community's hungry (either directly or via appointed agencies.). These people will also act as your eyes and ears on the ground ensuring that food is used appropriately
  • accounting staff to record food handled and keep statutory financial and other records
  • you may need fundraising people
  • IT staff.

Resources. You'll need money to:

• Secure the warehouse space.
• Pay staff (other than volunteers)
• Buy or rent delivery vehicles
• Pay other operating expenses.

How Can FoodBank SA Help?

We can:

• Offer experienced advice on matters such as how to select a warehouse, what type of vehicles are suitable for food logistics, etc.
• Connections. We can help to connect you with others in your community who may be willing to work to create a local foodbank. We can also help create connections with provincial and local government. The national government has recognised FoodBank SA as the country's official national foodbanking system. Thus we may be able to help you to secure cooperation and potentially funding from your provincial or local government.
• Conduct limited advertising on your behalf, using resources such as our website and newsletters.
• Subject to availability, provide site visits from FoodBank SA staff with experience of setting up foodbanks elsewhere.
• Train your staff about foodbanking in seminars including foodbankers from around the country.
• Potentially, help you with seed capital to make a start and with fundraising advice to enable you to become elf sufficient quickly.
• Credibility. We can help you to achieve the minimum standards we require before we can accept you as a fully fledged Member FoodBank of FoodBank SA.

Where Should You Start?

Create the team. Unless you're operating in a small village, you'll need a team to make it happen. Start by contacting us and asking if others in your centre are already working on a foodbank. If there are such people, we'll connect you. If there are none, we'll help you to identify the right sort of people in your neighbourhood.

Start building contacts. Establish the potential sources of food in your community. Are there local branches of large food producers or supermarkets? If yes, we may be able to provide an introduction which will help you to secure their surplus food. In addition, we can advise you how to approach smaller, local food suppliers.

Look for Suitable Space. Use the checklist provided in Annexure 1 to try to find affordable and suitable space for your foodbank. We can help you to assess how much space you'll need for your community. Look out for an existing feeding scheme that has premises but would welcome an opportunity to increase their capacity.

Create a budget. We can help you to assess how much capital you'll need to set up a foodbank, and how much you'll need to keep it running. We can advise you on how to secure this funding - though the onus of finding it will fall on your own community.

Plan the logistics. Begin to plan how you'll collect food, and how you'll determine who will be the beneficiaries.

We'll be happy to supplement these preliminary notes with more detailed advice as your foodbank begins to take shape, but these are the starting points.