Just over a year ago, bp Southern Africa (bpSA) became the official fuel partner of SA Harvest, an organisation that salvages food destined for landfills, and delivers it to hungry people all over South Africa In terms of the agreement, bpSA undertook to fuel SA Harvest’s fleet of delivery vehicles as part of its “Million Meals a Month” initiative.
“The goal”, says Taelo Mojapelo CEO at bp Southern Africa, “is to support SA Harvest to deliver 36 million meals to those in need over three years”. “We see this partnership as an investment in our country—it’s an honour to be assisting a fine organisation like SA Harvest in its work.”
SA Harvest aims to end hunger and reduce food waste at the same time. Since 2019, it has been working with an ecosystem of partners to rescue nutritious food that would have gone to waste, and deliver it to hungry people all over the country, using refrigerated vehicles where necessary. bpSA’s contribution is helping SA Harvest’s fleet of vehicles deliver food daily to over 40 vetted beneficiaries in Durban, Cape Town, Bloemfontein, Nelspruit and the Mthatha region in the Eastern Cape.
Alongside its core food-delivery operation, SA Harvest runs educational and up-skilling programmes aimed at changing behaviour relating to food and finding new solutions to combat food waste and hunger.
“A year into this partnership, we have already achieved some major milestones. bpSA has helped SA Harvest deliver 20 million meals providing thousands of individuals at least one meal every day,” Alan Browde, CEO and founder of SA Harvest says. “In the process, we have saved six million kilograms of food from going into landfill, saving 390 000 tonnes of methane gas from being emitted into the atmosphere.”
“Solving the problem of hunger has significant benefits for the country in terms of physical and mental development and well-being—particularly when it comes to early childhood nutrition. It’s completely unacceptable that 30% of our children are stunted, and South Africa will remain at a massive disadvantage while our children suffer the effects of malnutrition,” says Browde. “With the help of generous corporate partners like bpSA, we are slowly but surely helping to change the face of South Africa, one full belly at a time. We look forward to continuing our partnership with bpSA over the next two years.”
DID YOU KNOW?
BP has operated in Africa for almost 100 years, pursuing a range of interests from crude oil importation and refining to the distribution and marketing of gas and refined products through a network of over 500 service stations, Aviation, bp Marine and Castrol.
The head office for bp Southern Africa (BPSA) is based in Rosebank, Johannesburg.
The core bp brands include the multi award-winning bp Ultimate fuels, Wild Bean Café, Pick n Pay (PnP) Express and BP Express convenience brands.
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