Enhanced livelihoods > Socio-economic development (SED)
Socio-economic development (SED)
Tiger Brands' SED strategy focuses on nourishing and
nurturing more lives every day, with a priority on food
security. In partnership with food-focused NGOs, we
support vulnerable households near our operations, aiming
to build sustainable, food-secure communities. We create
long-term impact by fostering partnerships and prioritising
skills training and community enterprise development,
moving beyond philanthropy to drive lasting, positive
change.
Our SED strategy, integrated within the external affairs
strategy, addresses food security, environmental
stewardship, disaster resilience, social entrepreneurship
and nutrition education. It aligns with the UN SDGs, the
South African National Development Plan, and the B-BBEE
Act, tackling poverty, hunger, education and inequality.
Management
We work in partnership with local non-profit organisations
(NPOs) to implement and refine our SED programme and
related initiatives. These partnerships involve regular
engagement, progress reports, site visits and workshops
to track performance and capture lessons learned. Annual
reports from our partners include key metrics such as
beneficiary numbers, activities, training delivered,
challenges and opportunities.
As part of our focus on strengthening stakeholder
management across sites, we have introduced a
community engagement toolkit and site-level steering
committees (steercoms) to improve stakeholder
engagement, social incident management and
performance monitoring across our sites. The toolkit
equips plant managers with standard operating
procedures (SOPs) for handling disruptions, addressing
grievances and tracking commitments to ensure we deliver
on our promises.
The steercoms are active engagement platforms that help
our sites manage relationships with external stakeholders
and surrounding communities. They keep the group
informed of community activities and concerns, and identify
opportunities to partner with local organisations and
advance socio-economic development through employment,
procurement, skills development and enterprise support.
In 2024, as part of implementing and rolling out the toolkit
across sites, we held two stakeholder management
workshops with plant managers, HR directors, SED
champions and key employees. The first introduced the
process and gathered feedback on its practicality, while the
second focused on building capacity to apply SOPs and
manage social impact through the steercoms.
During the year, steercoms were established for eight sites,
including Albany and Milling (Randfontein), Beverages
(Roodekop), Culinary (Lutzville), Culinary (Musina), Durban
South Cluster (Tastic, Albany, Snacks and Treats), Peanut
Butter (Krugersdorp) and Milling (Hennenman and Marble
Hall). These committees are now fully operational and have
had a positive effect, addressing key community concerns
such as procurement opportunities, employment, skills
training and supporting the implementation of local
community initiatives.
The Durban South Cluster Steercom (Tastic, Snacks and
Treats and Albany sites) initiated its first community
projects with food donations for matric camps at the local
technical high school and a Mandela Month campaign,
where employees prepared meals for a local ECD centre
and the primary school.
Key initiatives
Our key SED initiatives drive impact in the areas of food
security and nutrition and skills and enterprise development.
Each year, we build on the progress and relationships of
the previous year and adapt our initiatives to respond to
any emerging concerns. In addition to our flagship initiatives
below, we sponsor ad hoc projects with various partners
throughout the year and provide disaster food relief support
where needed in partnership with organisations such as
Gift of the Givers and FoodForward SA.
Food and nutrition
Our food and nutrition initiatives positively impact lives at
every stage, providing targeted support across early
childhood, primary school, university, family, community
and later life. In 2024, our key initiatives focused on primary
schools, universities and families, through our ongoing
programmes: EduPlant, Plates4Days and Family Nutrition
Support. Additionally, we founded and support The
Tiger Brands Foundation which runs an in-school breakfast
programme. We sponsor the participation of three schools
in this programme and finance the training of food handlers
to cook and serve the breakfasts (see here).
Primary school
EduPlant
EduPlant is South Africa's national school nutrition and food
security initiative, helping schools create permaculture
gardens to supply fresh produce for feeding programmes
that enhance learners' nutrition and performance while
promoting skills in organic food production. Tiger Brands
has supported EduPlant since 2019, including the support
of 300 schools in 2023, where Mfesane Secondary School
in the Eastern Cape was named national champion for its
effective use of crops at school and in the community. We
continued our support in 2024, with a cohort of 340 schools
from underserved areas.
University
Plates4Days
The Plates4Days initiative addresses food insecurity among
students at South Africa's tertiary institutions – a significant
and often overlooked issue. By providing monthly food hampers,
the programme helps students access nutritious meals,
allowing them to focus on their studies instead of worrying
about their next meal. In 2024, Plates4Days delivered 4 616
food hampers each month, reaching 8 028 students across
seven universities and 14 campuses. A 2020 assessment found
the programme achieves an SROI of R5,00 for every R1,00
invested. We are now working to expand its reach and
impact through partnerships.
Family life
Family Nutrition Support
In 2024, the Family Nutrition Support initiative distributed
3 014 food hampers each month across South Africa,
excluding the Northern Cape, North West and Mpumalanga.
These hampers targeted families identified as food insecure
by our NGO partners and served multiple purposes:
supplementing after-school programmes, supporting feeding
schemes and providing incentives for families participating
in skills development programmes. The initiative reached
30 775 direct and 25 753 indirect beneficiaries during the year.
Elderly care
Meals on Wheels
During the festive season, we partnered with Meals on Wheels
to host a Christmas lunch for elderly residents of the Riverside
View community in Diepsloot. Our contribution included
essential products like rice, KOO mixed vegetables, canned
fruit, Oros and Benny stock cubes, which were used to
prepare a nourishing meal for approximately 180 pensioners.
Skills and enterprise development
Our community skills and enterprise development
initiatives aim to both fund projects and foster self-reliance
among our partners by equipping them with
the business management skills needed to build
self-sustaining ventures that drive long-term social
impact. Our primary focus remains on the SED
Acceleration Programme, through which we support
partners in developing successful social enterprises.
In 2024, we provided grant funding to the African
Children's Feeding Scheme (ACFS) in Gauteng and
Yabonga Children's Project in the Western Cape, both
of which successfully pitched ideas to enhance their
community bakeries during our 2023 "Start Your
Business" training.
During the year, ACFS's Soweto bakery purchased a
generator, stabilising operations amid utility challenges
and securing a local superstore as a customer. The
bakery now sells over 450 loaves of bread and other
baked goods daily. The new Tembisa bakery, opened
in June 2023, produces 200 loaves daily for the local
community and Kota outlets and has successfully
leveraged informal selling to a nearby clinic and school
to market its goods. Yabonga Children's Project
re-established their bakery which now focuses on
supporting an after-school feeding programme for
local children. In supporting these community bakeries,
Tiger Brands also benefits as the bakeries become
customers who use our Golden Cloud flour.
Our three-year partnership with social enterprise RivLife
International concluded this year. Over this period, we
made annual investments to strengthen their income-generating
capacity, financed upgrades to their early
childhood development (ECD) centre and bakery, helped
establish and expand a community food garden and
provided ongoing food support to the ECD centre.
RivLife has successfully leveraged this support to
enhance its income-generating activities and our nearby
Albany bakery and Golden Cloud milling plant continue
to offer ad hoc support as needed.
We continue to learn and adapt our approach to
community enterprise development in collaboration with
our ESD team. In addition to helping refine our partners'
business proposals, the ESD team helped us develop a
monitoring and evaluation framework for tracking and
measuring the progress and impact of this work.
MyWalk school shoes initiative
In 2024, Tiger Brands partnered with MyWalk to help
tackle a critical need: over a million South African children
lack school shoes, which affects their confidence, social
acceptance and ability to focus on learning. Through this
initiative, Tiger Brands employees donated funds,
matched by MyWalk, to provide 5 200 pairs of durable,
eco-friendly school shoes to children across Gauteng,
Free State, Limpopo, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
Made from recycled medical materials, these shoes
represent multiple wins – supporting children's education,
reducing healthcare waste and creating jobs in local
communities – all in line with Tiger Brands' commitment
to sustainable, meaningful impact.
Additional SED projects in 2024
Lamontville matric camps – We sponsored all meals for
learners at two three-day matric camps at Lamontville
High School, in collaboration with local stakeholders.
The camp aimed to improve examination readiness
and achieve a 100% pass rate.
Sanitary pad donation campaign – We distributed 2 600
packs of sanitary pads to over 800 grade 6 and 7 girls
at three schools near our beverages plant during the
International Women's Month in 2024. The campaign
included a menstrual hygiene workshop facilitated by
non-profit organisation, Abundance in Light, with
members of the Mamelodi Sundowns ladies squad
invited to speak on women empowerment. The initiative
aims to ensure that no girl misses a day of school due
to her monthly menstrual cycle and that they can stay
in school with dignity.
Performance
This year, we implemented a streamlined SED programme
in response to rising food costs and budget adjustments
aligned with in-year profit estimates. While we maintained
our commitment to allocate 1,5% of NPAT to social
initiatives, we took a more conservative approach to ensure
delivery on the agreed number of food hampers across all
our food support initiatives. Consequently, fewer hampers
were distributed through our Plates4Days and Family Food
programmes, and 60% of our social partners experienced
reduced support across various initiatives.
In 2024, our total SED spend was R28,8 million, compared
to R70,8 million in 2023 (including the once-off R42 million
Isondlo child nutrition programme). We distributed a total of
90 723 food hampers across all food and nutrition initiatives,
reaching 64 556 direct and indirect beneficiaries. Additionally,
we spent R10,5 million on community skills and enterprise
development.
In 2024, Tiger Brands commissioned a social return on
investment (SROI) study to assess the impact of the Isondlo
programme. The study, which included comprehensive
in-person engagement with various stakeholder groups,
revealed a highly positive SROI ratio of 6,77:1, indicating
that for every rand invested, R6,77 of social value was
created. These findings underscored the programme's
success in delivering significant outcomes that positively
impacted the lives of children, their families and the
broader community.
Socio-economic development (SED)
Tiger Brands' SED strategy focuses on nourishing and nurturing more lives every day, with a priority on food security. In partnership with food-focused NGOs, we support vulnerable households near our operations, aiming to build sustainable, food-secure communities. We create long-term impact by fostering partnerships and prioritising skills training and community enterprise development, moving beyond philanthropy to drive lasting, positive change.
Our SED strategy, integrated within the external affairs strategy, addresses food security, environmental stewardship, disaster resilience, social entrepreneurship and nutrition education. It aligns with the UN SDGs, the South African National Development Plan, and the B-BBEE Act, tackling poverty, hunger, education and inequality.
Management
We work in partnership with local non-profit organisations (NPOs) to implement and refine our SED programme and related initiatives. These partnerships involve regular engagement, progress reports, site visits and workshops to track performance and capture lessons learned. Annual reports from our partners include key metrics such as beneficiary numbers, activities, training delivered, challenges and opportunities.
As part of our focus on strengthening stakeholder management across sites, we have introduced a community engagement toolkit and site-level steering committees (steercoms) to improve stakeholder engagement, social incident management and performance monitoring across our sites. The toolkit equips plant managers with standard operating procedures (SOPs) for handling disruptions, addressing grievances and tracking commitments to ensure we deliver on our promises.
The steercoms are active engagement platforms that help our sites manage relationships with external stakeholders and surrounding communities. They keep the group informed of community activities and concerns, and identify opportunities to partner with local organisations and advance socio-economic development through employment, procurement, skills development and enterprise support.
In 2024, as part of implementing and rolling out the toolkit across sites, we held two stakeholder management workshops with plant managers, HR directors, SED champions and key employees. The first introduced the process and gathered feedback on its practicality, while the second focused on building capacity to apply SOPs and manage social impact through the steercoms.
During the year, steercoms were established for eight sites, including Albany and Milling (Randfontein), Beverages (Roodekop), Culinary (Lutzville), Culinary (Musina), Durban South Cluster (Tastic, Albany, Snacks and Treats), Peanut Butter (Krugersdorp) and Milling (Hennenman and Marble Hall). These committees are now fully operational and have had a positive effect, addressing key community concerns such as procurement opportunities, employment, skills training and supporting the implementation of local community initiatives.
The Durban South Cluster Steercom (Tastic, Snacks and Treats and Albany sites) initiated its first community projects with food donations for matric camps at the local technical high school and a Mandela Month campaign, where employees prepared meals for a local ECD centre and the primary school.
Key initiatives
Our key SED initiatives drive impact in the areas of food security and nutrition and skills and enterprise development. Each year, we build on the progress and relationships of the previous year and adapt our initiatives to respond to any emerging concerns. In addition to our flagship initiatives below, we sponsor ad hoc projects with various partners throughout the year and provide disaster food relief support where needed in partnership with organisations such as Gift of the Givers and FoodForward SA.
Food and nutrition
Our food and nutrition initiatives positively impact lives at every stage, providing targeted support across early childhood, primary school, university, family, community and later life. In 2024, our key initiatives focused on primary schools, universities and families, through our ongoing programmes: EduPlant, Plates4Days and Family Nutrition Support. Additionally, we founded and support The Tiger Brands Foundation which runs an in-school breakfast programme. We sponsor the participation of three schools in this programme and finance the training of food handlers to cook and serve the breakfasts (see here).
Primary school
EduPlant
EduPlant is South Africa's national school nutrition and food security initiative, helping schools create permaculture gardens to supply fresh produce for feeding programmes that enhance learners' nutrition and performance while promoting skills in organic food production. Tiger Brands has supported EduPlant since 2019, including the support of 300 schools in 2023, where Mfesane Secondary School in the Eastern Cape was named national champion for its effective use of crops at school and in the community. We continued our support in 2024, with a cohort of 340 schools from underserved areas.
University
Plates4Days
The Plates4Days initiative addresses food insecurity among students at South Africa's tertiary institutions – a significant and often overlooked issue. By providing monthly food hampers, the programme helps students access nutritious meals, allowing them to focus on their studies instead of worrying about their next meal. In 2024, Plates4Days delivered 4 616 food hampers each month, reaching 8 028 students across seven universities and 14 campuses. A 2020 assessment found the programme achieves an SROI of R5,00 for every R1,00 invested. We are now working to expand its reach and impact through partnerships.
Family life
Family Nutrition Support
In 2024, the Family Nutrition Support initiative distributed 3 014 food hampers each month across South Africa, excluding the Northern Cape, North West and Mpumalanga. These hampers targeted families identified as food insecure by our NGO partners and served multiple purposes: supplementing after-school programmes, supporting feeding schemes and providing incentives for families participating in skills development programmes. The initiative reached 30 775 direct and 25 753 indirect beneficiaries during the year.
Elderly care
Meals on Wheels
During the festive season, we partnered with Meals on Wheels to host a Christmas lunch for elderly residents of the Riverside View community in Diepsloot. Our contribution included essential products like rice, KOO mixed vegetables, canned fruit, Oros and Benny stock cubes, which were used to prepare a nourishing meal for approximately 180 pensioners.
Skills and enterprise development
Our community skills and enterprise development initiatives aim to both fund projects and foster self-reliance among our partners by equipping them with the business management skills needed to build self-sustaining ventures that drive long-term social impact. Our primary focus remains on the SED Acceleration Programme, through which we support partners in developing successful social enterprises.
In 2024, we provided grant funding to the African Children's Feeding Scheme (ACFS) in Gauteng and Yabonga Children's Project in the Western Cape, both of which successfully pitched ideas to enhance their community bakeries during our 2023 "Start Your Business" training.
During the year, ACFS's Soweto bakery purchased a generator, stabilising operations amid utility challenges and securing a local superstore as a customer. The bakery now sells over 450 loaves of bread and other baked goods daily. The new Tembisa bakery, opened in June 2023, produces 200 loaves daily for the local community and Kota outlets and has successfully leveraged informal selling to a nearby clinic and school to market its goods. Yabonga Children's Project re-established their bakery which now focuses on supporting an after-school feeding programme for local children. In supporting these community bakeries, Tiger Brands also benefits as the bakeries become customers who use our Golden Cloud flour.
Our three-year partnership with social enterprise RivLife International concluded this year. Over this period, we made annual investments to strengthen their income-generating capacity, financed upgrades to their early childhood development (ECD) centre and bakery, helped establish and expand a community food garden and provided ongoing food support to the ECD centre. RivLife has successfully leveraged this support to enhance its income-generating activities and our nearby Albany bakery and Golden Cloud milling plant continue to offer ad hoc support as needed.
We continue to learn and adapt our approach to community enterprise development in collaboration with our ESD team. In addition to helping refine our partners' business proposals, the ESD team helped us develop a monitoring and evaluation framework for tracking and measuring the progress and impact of this work.
MyWalk school shoes initiative
In 2024, Tiger Brands partnered with MyWalk to help tackle a critical need: over a million South African children lack school shoes, which affects their confidence, social acceptance and ability to focus on learning. Through this initiative, Tiger Brands employees donated funds, matched by MyWalk, to provide 5 200 pairs of durable, eco-friendly school shoes to children across Gauteng, Free State, Limpopo, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. Made from recycled medical materials, these shoes represent multiple wins – supporting children's education, reducing healthcare waste and creating jobs in local communities – all in line with Tiger Brands' commitment to sustainable, meaningful impact.
Additional SED projects in 2024
Performance
This year, we implemented a streamlined SED programme in response to rising food costs and budget adjustments aligned with in-year profit estimates. While we maintained our commitment to allocate 1,5% of NPAT to social initiatives, we took a more conservative approach to ensure delivery on the agreed number of food hampers across all our food support initiatives. Consequently, fewer hampers were distributed through our Plates4Days and Family Food programmes, and 60% of our social partners experienced reduced support across various initiatives.
In 2024, our total SED spend was R28,8 million, compared to R70,8 million in 2023 (including the once-off R42 million Isondlo child nutrition programme). We distributed a total of 90 723 food hampers across all food and nutrition initiatives, reaching 64 556 direct and indirect beneficiaries. Additionally, we spent R10,5 million on community skills and enterprise development.
In 2024, Tiger Brands commissioned a social return on investment (SROI) study to assess the impact of the Isondlo programme. The study, which included comprehensive in-person engagement with various stakeholder groups, revealed a highly positive SROI ratio of 6,77:1, indicating that for every rand invested, R6,77 of social value was created. These findings underscored the programme's success in delivering significant outcomes that positively impacted the lives of children, their families and the broader community.