Most food security conversations focus on what happens before food reaches the plate: how it is grown, moved and sold. Far less attention goes to what happens once it leaves the food system. For Oricol Environmental Services, which has managed more than 79 100 tonnes of food waste so far in 2026, this is where a second value chain begins: one that returns nutrients, protein and energy to the systems that produce food.
According to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), an estimated 10.3 million tonnes of edible food in South Africa never reaches a human stomach each year, equivalent to 45% of the country’s available food supply¹. Almost half of those losses occur during processing and packaging, the stage where food manufacturers, distributors and retailers hold the most direct control over what happens next.
“Prevention will always come first, but some food waste is unavoidable: an off-spec batch, expired stock, a production byproduct,” says Dirk de Wet, Chief Operating Officer at Oricol Environmental Services. “Once that material exists, it should not be buried. It still carries nutrients, protein and energy, and with the right processing, those go straight back into agriculture.”
Oricol’s beneficiation services handle organic waste according to where it comes from. Pre-consumer waste, such as vegetable offcuts from food production, goes directly into one of three pathways: animal feed, compost or biogas. Post-consumer waste, such as store and production returns, is first depackaged to protect client branding, after which the organic fraction follows the same three routes. Drying systems turn wet food waste into a registered animal feed, bulk organic streams become compost and soil enhancements that reduce reliance on chemical fertilisers, and the third pathway recovers energy through biogas.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the compost pathway runs through Oricol’s 20,000 m² composting site near Verulam, approved by the provincial Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs in June 2025 and authorised to process more than 10 tonnes of organic waste a day. Using aerated static pile composting, the site turns depackaged waste from food and beverage, hospitality and logistics clients into compost, with higher grades refined for agricultural soil conditioning.
In the Western Cape, the biogas pathway operates at scale through Oricol’s multi-year relationship with Cape Town Biogas. Expired and off-spec products are securely depackaged at Oricol’s permitted Cape Town facility, and the organic fraction is sent to a bio-digestion plant in Athlone. In 2025, approximately 8,000 tonnes of organic waste followed this route, yielding biomethane for energy use, beverage-grade CO2 for the food and beverage industry, and bioavailable nutrients for agricultural soil restoration.
“That is the loop closing in practical terms,” says de Wet. “The food and beverage sector that generates the waste receives CO2 back as a production input, and farmers receive nutrients that rebuild their soil. For our clients, a disposal cost becomes a measurable contribution to the food system.”
The regulatory direction reinforces the business case. The Draft National Waste Management Strategy 2026 designates organic waste as a priority waste stream for the first time, and the Western Cape’s 100% organic waste landfill ban takes effect in 2027. Oricol supports clients through this transition with sustainability reporting on volumes, diversion rates and environmental impact, giving them auditable data for ESG disclosures.
“The sector often talks about innovation as something still to come,” says de Wet. “Much of it already exists and is working in South Africa. The task now is to scale it, so that every tonne of unavoidable food waste is treated as an input for the next harvest.”
