The Food Forward project conducted its third food waste tour to the George area on the 6th and 7th of November 2014. The participating individuals included delegates from Cape Town organisations such as the Woolworths, Greencape, Closing the Loop, CSIR, as well as delegates from the Western Cape Government Department of Economic Development and Tourism (Green Economy and Agri-Processing). In addition, local representatives included members of Kos en Fynbos, Permaculture SA and the local George Municipality.
The group started by visiting a site where Raymond Auerbach from NMMU and a number of local NGO and government partners are planning to create an Agri-park. With help from the local surrounding communities, the plan is to create a fruit and vegetable production and processing facility to supply food for the local markets. Energy and compost will also be generated by extracting nutrients and methane gas from the adjacent sewage treatment works, which will be used to fertilise the plants and run the agri-processing facility. The project stakeholders are busy in the consultation and co-design phase of the project with the two neighbouring communities, and once the facility is up and running it will provide a host of job opportunities as well as locally grown, organic produce and by-products.
The second visit was to the Van Greunen Boerdery in Grootbrak, where the group was taken through both the blueberry farming process and the dairy farming and milking process. Blueberries it seems require a significant amount of effort and management to get them up to export quality. In terms of losses, however, the wind appears to be the main factor in knocking berries off the trees before they can be harvested. Wind control tunnels are used to slow the flows of wind, and a significant amount of labour is required to pick during the season. Milk also requires quite careful monitoring, and a sophisticated nutrition planning and ailment prevention early warning system is used to keep cows healthy and to pre-treat any potential health issues that could affect cows’ wellbeing or the milk quality.
The last visit of the first day was the Eden Biofuels facility in Mossel Bay Industria. Here the group was taken through the process whereby used cooking oil is converted into biodiesel. The process of making biodiesel happens through a series of steps, where the cooled cooking oil is cleaned, filtered and subjected to various chemical reactions that separate the oil into biodiesel and glycerol (with a small percentage of waste fats and water being separated out in the final scrubbing process). The result is a pure, cleaner burning, biomass-derived fuel that can be used to power diesel vehicles and engines. Glycerol can in fact be used to make vegetable based soaps, a process which has been around for over a century. With such a large quantity of used cooking oil available, increasing fuel prices and a growing demand for more eco-friendly cleaning products, this is one industry that is crucial to overall goals of sustainable economic development.
Day two included investigating the second half of the dairy chain, following on from the milking process the day before. Firstly, the group visited the Lakeland Food Company, where the specific flavour/additive mix, that is then added to various forms of processed dairy, is created. For example, the fruit, colourants, preservatives and stabilisers used to make a chunky fruit flavoured yogurt, or the spicy herb mix used to make a herb cream cheese, are all premixed by the Lakeland Food Company in exact quantities, ready to be sent to the dairy processing factory. Interestingly, the facility uses 2nd and 3rd grade fruit and vegetables in their pre-mixes (produce that would not necessarily be suitable for retailer shelves in its raw form due to size, shape or blemishes). The next stop, also in the George Industria complex, was the Lancewood Cheese Factory. Here the group saw where the milk from the previous days excursion, and the mix from the previous visit, all comes together to make the final consumer-ready, dairy products. The cheese industries largest waste is in the form of water, which they are currently busy trying to reduce, however, all solid, unusable cheese residue is sent to pig farmers for feed and does not get wasted.
In general, the George tour was a great success, with the group able to see a number of fascinating industries, including the whole chain in the dairy production process. Again, very little waste appears to be produced at the visited facilities. All the facility by-products are either already being utilised, sent away as animal feed, or in the process of new product development, in order to completely maximise resource efficiency. Keep following the Food Forward project for news on the next tour. Next stop - Witzenberg!
Too see images form this tour click here.