Feeding the Future: Building Safe, Nutritious, and Affordable Food Systems
It’s no secret that South Africa’s food system is in a tough spot with climate change, price pressures, and uneven household purchasing power adding to our shopping basket woes. Although, it seems the pinch is being felt all over the world. By 2050, the global population is projected to reach 9.8 billion! Growing and delivering enough food won’t be the only challenge. The food of tomorrow needs to be safe, nutritious, and produced within the planet’s dwindling resource limits.
Creating a future of food that’s affordable and sustainable will require the coming together of the food industry, governments, and consumers to rethink everything from how we produce and consume food, to how we can lessen waste and look for alternative (but still nutritious) sources.
Let’s highlight a few issues before we get to the possible solution.
Concern 1: Inflation has eased but food is still pricey
Headline Consumer Price Index slowed to 3.3% year-on-year in August 2025, and food and non-alcoholic beverages ran at 5.2%, down from 5.7% in July.
That helps at the tills, but food inflation still outpaces overall inflation. The cost of a low-income “household food basket” tracked by the Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice & Dignity Group averaged R5,380.62 in August 2025, 2.9% higher than a year ago (though 1.1% down month-on-month).
Concern 2: Reliance on imported crops
We have huge, beautiful farms in South Africa and luckily we grow plenty of our own maize, but due to the global economy being what it is, we’re import-dependent for rice (100% imported) and roughly half of our wheat needs, so global prices, shipping, and the rand directly impact our in-store shelves.
The Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy (BFAP) also highlights dependence on rice, wheat, and palm oil in the import basket, reinforcing exposure to world prices and exchange-rate swings. When drought or conflict increases world grain prices, or when the rand weakens, local bread and cereal inflation can flare even if our home-grown maize is stable.
Concern 3: The effect of climate change on food in SA
Southern Africa’s 2023/24 El Niño—a weather pattern phenomenon that consists of warmer-than-average temperatures—brought hotter, drier conditions that lead to water shortages which cut regional harvests and increased food insecurity risks. South Africa wasn’t spared: the Crop Estimates Committee‘s (CEC) 2024 maize projection was trimmed to 13.26 million tons, 19% below 2023 which is reflective of signature El Niño damage.
Adding to that, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments warn that more frequent droughts are likely across large parts of Southern Africa as global warming rises above 1.5 °C. Heavy-rain extremes also increase volatility which makes planning and pricing harder across farm-to-retail chains.
Concern 4: Food safety around the world
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates 600 million people fall ill and 420,000 die each year from unsafe food, with 33 million healthy life years lost; children under five make up a disproportionate amount of the latter. The thing is, a lot of these unfortunate instances are preventable with the right safety systems and consistent standards across supply chains, as well as more education around good personal hygiene and food safety practices at home.
At the same time, the double burden of malnutrition, coexisting undernutrition and diet-related obesity, has surged globally. UNICEF and partners report rising obesity alongside persistent micronutrient deficiencies, underscoring the need for foods that are both safer and more nutrient-dense.
How do we ensure the food of the future is safe and nutritious?
Solution 1: Cut waste in all aspects
Globally, around 13% of food is lost post-harvest before it makes it to the shops. Around 19% is wasted in households, food service, and retail which are altogether responsible for 8–10% of global greenhouse-gas emissions.
From on-farm handling to cold-chain logistics, processing yields, smarter pack sizes, and consumer education; reducing food loss and waste means more access to safe, affordable food while reducing harmful emissions. Halving food loss and waste would cut agricultural greenhouse gasses and reduce the number of undernourished people, which is a win-win for all.
This also requires more education from the government and retailers directly to the consumer to inform shoppers about tips like buying in bulk to reduce packaging, using reusable items where they can, saying no to single-use plastics, and better meal planning to avoid food spoilage and waste.
Solution 2: Increased help from the SA government and feeding programmes
Boosting household incomes, even marginally, can help to alleviate some of the pressure of putting food on the table. This can be done through things like an increase of social grants, pensions. Food vouchers, and feeding programmes.
Social grants: The R370 Social Relief of Distress (SRD) grant was extended to March 2026, while core grants, like child support, rose in April 2025. These are marginal but meaningful boosts to household food budgets.
School feeding: Initiatives like the Knorr and FERL’s School Feeding Programme drastically reduce hunger and malnutrition in school-going children. Civil society estimates that over 9 million children in South Africa are part of various school feeding programmes.
Solution 3: Even more sustainable and regenerative farming
Regenerative practices in farming focus on improving soil health, using water wisely, biodiversity, and farm resilience. It can help stabilise crops and improve harvests, and reduce safety risks amplified by extreme weather. Innovative solution and sustainable farming practices will be absolutely necessary to keep food safe and nutritious while creating balance with the Earth so we can continue to farm the land effectively.
Solution 4: Improve diets through reformulation, fortification and innovation
Rebalancing health portfolios can help, with a focus on nutrient-dense foods like more whole grains, fibre, legumes, high-quality lean proteins and healthy fats; while reducing sodium, sugars and saturated fats. The WHO global sodium benchmarks guide shows reducing sodium intake can prevent cardiovascular disease. We also need large-scale food fortification of staples like more iodised salt, iron or folate added to flour, and adding vitamin A where relevant. It still one of the most cost-effective ways to close micronutrient gaps at scale.
Solution 5: Closely align with global standards of food safety
Modern food safety is based on Codex Alimentarius (international food standards), good hygiene practices and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP), a preventive, risk-based system that identifies hazards and controls them at critical points from farm to fork. More companies need to embed HACCP across their entire operations and the same controls should be required from suppliers. Climate change and emerging risks (like an increase in mycotoxins and changing pathogen ecology) make proactive, data-driven monitoring even more critical.
Solution 6: Consumer health education & nutritious, affordable meals
More education should be easily and readily accessible to show consumers how to build a healthy food basket while doing their grocery shopping to ensure they’re still buying and preparing healthy food on a budget. Here are a few recipes that will help keep costs down while keeping nutrients maximised:
Vegan: Spicy Butternut And Chickpea Tagine
Meaty: Spicy Mince and Red Kidney Beans with Herbed Dombolo
Quick & easy: Chakalaka Roasted Red Cabbage Steaks with Mixed Seeds
Final thoughts
If governments, businesses, and consumers act together—building climate resilience, enforcing rigorous safety standards, fortifying diets, and slashing waste—we can transform the food system from being in a place of vulnerability into a foundation of health and stability.
Feeding nearly 10 billion people safely, nutritiously, and sustainably in the near-future is not optional. It’s the defining challenge of our time, and the food industry has both the responsibility and the tools to lead the way.