It reached this milestone this month at the Umthambeka Primary School in Tembisa. The feeding scheme was launched to help improve the nutritional status of the people of South Africa, especially children and senior citizens, as well as the thousands of people affected by job losses. Brian Weyers, director of the Shoprite Group, said that the group is acutely aware of the current economic pressure on the less-privileged sectors of society with the country recovering from recession.
"In deciding to launch this programme, the group took cognisance of the link between economic development, poverty alleviation and malnutrition and has re-looked at our role and responsibility in this regard. In the process we have focussed social spending last year, and in the year to come, on helping more and more South Africans who worry about how they will feed their families.
"Not only do we continuously strive to bring South Africans the lowest prices, but we have broadened this with substantial social support. The mobile kitchens have enabled the group to reach out across the country to distribute nutritional meals to the poorest of the poor.
"Apart from numerous schools, homes for the aged and community centres across the country where the Shoprite mobile kitchens have by now become a familiar sight, desperate communities in every province affected by floods and heavy rains in the past months received sustenance. The re-focussing on the group's social spending enabled it to make a difference in the lives of many destitute and misplaced families in a time of need," Weyers said. The programme entails two mobile soup kitchens in each of the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces and one each in the rest of the nine provinces, bringing the total to 10.
"Each mobile kitchen is manned by three Shoprite staff members, who are supported logistically by the Shoprite supermarket in the area in which it operates. A public relations team of nine people will co-ordinate the relief effort countrywide. The kitchens are kept stocked through generous contributions by soup manufacturer Royco and Albany, which is supplying 60 000 breads a month to stock the 10 units in operation," he said.
