A soup filled with 67 000litres of compassion

To commemorate the 67 years that Nelson Mandela spent fighting for justice, equality, and human rights – Chefs with Compassion along with various home cooks, chefs, corporates, and communities joined at the HTA School of Culinary Arts, in Ferndale on July 18.

Everyone that joined, gave 67-minutes or more of their time to prepare soup and raise awareness of the societal issue concerning hunger in South Africa.

Chef Coo Pillay, national project manager for Chefs with Compassion, shared that they started this association in the early hard lockdown of March 2020, and it grew from the need of people in hospitality being left destitute because during lockdown restaurants were closed, people lost jobs, people lost income and grew in need of food.

He added that food was going to waste because farmers, retailers, manufacturers, and food service industries were stuck with it. Food was available but in the end got wasted. “ We go out to rescue the produce that would have normally been thrown away, we then bring it to our kitchens and turn it into hearty nutritional meals, and more importantly, we feed it to whoever needs it,” said Pilly.

He mentioned that as Mandela Day drew near they wanted to make an impact but at the same time also create a safe environment. Tis is how their
67 000-litre challenge came about because they wanted every South African in their secure environment to come together and give 67 minutes of their day and prepare a hearty nutritional soup that they could feed to the nation.

“In 2020 we achieved that target by 77 000 litres of souping produce. Last year we were on track to smash the record but unfortunately in the week of Mandela Day, KZN was hit with the riots so we lost a 25 000 litre pledge from KZN. So we had to make those numbers up very quickly but still achieved around 70 000 litres of soup and, at the same time, we were able to support KZN with two trucks of soup, one from Cape Town and one from Johannesburg.”

At 16:00 the Chefs with Compassion team announced their target – they successfully achieved 90 679 litres of soup which would feed 362 716 people. In closing, the Chefs with Compassion team thanked all the chefs across the country who participated and made this possible.

Related Article:https://www.citizen.co.za/randburg-sun/449764/hta-school-of-culinary-art-hold-boerewors-competition/