Chefs with Compassion aims to cook 67 000 litres of soup for Mandela Day

Hanneke van Linge, Founding Director of CWC and Nosh Food Rescue, said the mission of CWC is to rescue the 10.6 million tons of food that is wasted each year in South Africa and to use the produce to help address the widespread food insecurity.

She said these two problems are low-hanging fruit when you place the two together.

Van Linge said since the organisation was registered in 2020, they have cooked 9.55 million meals out of rescued produce, and they hope to cross the 10 million meal mark on Saturday.

She said that CWC not only provides meals on Mandela Day, but that the initiative was a year-long effort.

"We have 43 what we call hubs, and those are our community kitchens that cook all the produce that we rescue during the course of the year," said van Linge.

"They're obviously ramping up specifically for Mandela Day to be able to feed their wider communities, but then we've also got people like the hotels and the culinary schools and all the other partners that are cooking for Mandela Day. They tend to have favourite beneficiary organisations that they work with."

Van Linge said that anyone, from household cooks to top chefs, is welcome to take part by pledging the amount they aim to cook for food-insecure people on their website.

She said last year they cooked 142 000 litres of soup.

The director said to serve a meal to a food-insecure person is 'terribly, terribly humbling,' and it is often a call to serve.

"One of our chefs from the Culinary Passions School of Hospitality, Chef Citrum, he says, life makes sense when others matter."

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