To help reduce the volume of food dumped in landfills and to combat climate change, the KFC South Africa Harvest initiative has been working on a way to improve the way the fast food industry and restaurants alike, deal with surplus food in restaurants. The Harvest programme sees just under 200 KFC restaurants repurposing what they do with surplus chicken and getting it to people that need it most. These include people who are the most food insecure , who do not have sufficient access to quality food and protein.
Surplus food is defined by KFC as food that is perfectly fit and safe for human consumption but is surplus in nature due to the standards and procedures that exist within our restaurants due to strict internal hold times. If cooked chicken has reached the internal holding time for sale to customerâs, KFC will then remove the chicken and will re purpose it into the Harvest programme.
“In 2015 we amended our business process to accommodate the surplus food programme which was key to ensuring
the success of the programme whilst maintaining our rigorous internal food safety procedures in restaurants.â says
Thabisa Mkhwanazi, Public Affairs Director at KFC Africa. âWe are so proud of the way our team members have immersed themselves in the spirit of championing the change by becoming part of the solution to reduce food waste
in our business and in landfill while improving the well-being for most South Africans benefiting from this programme,â Mkhwanazi concludes.
The quick service supplier has donated over 300 000 kgs of food, that has now been converted into an excess of
one million meals. In addition to this , the environmental impact of this tonnage of surplus food has resulted in approximately 221 tonnes of Co2 and 9 700 tonnes of Methane (Ch4) not being produced in landfills.
âWe are excited about growing the partnership with KFC through their Harvest programme. It will allow us to increase access to edible nutritious food, including protein sources, to those who need it. KFC are a long-standing and valued partner of Food Forward SA and have made it their priority to address food insecurity at scale across South Africa.â comments Wayne Du Plessis from Food Forward.
KFC will be working with Food Forward South Africa to help distribute frozen surplus chicken to  identified non-profit beneficiaries as suggested by Food forward SA. The Frozen surplus chicken will then be distributed using
KFCâs transport partner Digistics to Food Forward depots on weekly pick up schedules and then their beneficiaries
collect the food and prepare nutrient-rich meals for people in need. In addition to the surplus froze
