Our CSI approach is rooted in the belief that Tiger Brands can add value to people’s lives – and is evidenced by our investment in our surrounding communities. We believe that, through socio-economic upliftment, we leave a sustainable legacy, and help to weave a positive and constructive social fabric in each country where we operate. Our focus areas are food security, nutrition education, hygiene, sanitation and heritage.
The group again committed over 3% of net profit after tax, or R24 million, to community development in 2015, achieving several milestones:
Our CSI strategy is executed through established policies and procedures, overseen by the social, ethics and transformation committee. We regularly review beneficiary organisations to ensure the most effective impact on our communities.
| Project type | Geographical presence | Impact | Donation (R000) |
||
| NGOs providing social suppor tto communities | Gauteng, Western Cape, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga | Food provision and cash donation | 17 293 | ||
| Cause-related marketing | Gauteng | Cash donation | 730 | ||
| Nutrition education | Gauteng, Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga | Food provision | 500 | ||
| School holiday food parcel distribution | Gauteng, Western Cape, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and North West | Food provision | 5 140 | ||
| Humanitarian support/ad hoc donations | All provinces | Food provision and cash donation | 509 | ||
| Total | 24 172 |
We believe true transformation is only possible through education – and good nutrition enhances the ability to learn and creates a platform for learners to fulfil their potential at school. In collaboration with the Department of Basic Education (DBE) and the Mandela Centre of Memory, Tiger Brands has initiated a food parcel distribution programme to alleviate food insecurity in our disadvantaged schools (detailed under Tiger Brands Foundation below). Since December 2012, 72 235 learners have benefited from this programme.
Our valuable partnerships with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other community organisations are critical to achieving our goals. Key partnerships are summarised below.
Buhle Farmers Academy was established in 2000 to provide practical skills training to farmers on crop, livestock, vegetable, poultry production and farm management. Its purpose is to support and empower new farmers to start up their own profitable farming activities. The academy also provides post-training support to assist farmers in setting up and expanding their farms.
It enrols up to 588 students per annum, with over 5 000 students trained over the past 15 years.
Tiger Brands has supported farmer development through this academy since 2009 by supplying dry foodstuffs for students’ meals. Buhle Farmers has been able to return the equivalent value back into subsidising students who could not otherwise afford the full cost of training.
Afrika Tikkun was started in 1994 to alleviate poverty under a model that seeks to develop the competencies of South Africans living in townships and using these skills to deliver much needed developmental services to children and youth. The model focuses on investing in the development of children from infancy into young adulthood and into the world of work.
Afrika Tikkun also provides family support services, early childhood development, career readiness and entrepreneurial development, nutrition, food security and support services, as well as primary healthcare.
Tiger Brands provides food products that help serve over 14 000 weekly meals for beneficiaries in various programmes.
In 2008, NMMU and Tiger Brands collaborated to ensure needy students and communities received vital nutrition.
NMMU provides meals to 682 students to ensure they have the nutritional support to complete their studies and enter the world of work. This way, with Tiger Brands’ support, they endeavour to break the cycle of unemployment and poverty.
The NMMU community project also uses our products to support surrounding communities with food, including 60 orphans from Sinethemba Children’s Home and Laphumilanga HIV/Aids home-based care centre for children affected by the disease. They also provide 100 daily meals to the community through a soup kitchen operating in Malabar, while Noxolo Preschool benefits from food products for 40 learners daily.
Cotlands has cared for thousands of vulnerable children since 1936. From its roots as a baby sanctuary, community-based programmes were introduced in 1999, primarily focused on HIV and nutrition, later adding psychosocial and educational support.
Cotlands now offers early learning sessions for children from birth to six years who do not have access to formal early childhood development opportunities. We have supported Cotlands since 2012 with food products for all its centres in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, Western Cape and Mpumalanga, benefiting over 8 000 vulnerable children and adults.
The Tiger Brands Foundation owns an effective 5% interest in Tiger Brands Limited and was established in 2010 to enhance our community impact.
The foundation implemented the first in-school breakfast feeding programme in 2011 in partnership with the Department of Basic Education’s national school nutrition programme. Initially, this covered six primary schools in Alexandra but has expanded to 64 schools across nine provinces, providing the essential breakfast meal to over 43 000 learners. To date, over 30 million breakfasts have been served to our country’s most vulnerable learners.
Until 2014, the feeding programme was funded by a “trickle dividend” equal to 15% of dividends received from the foundation’s shareholding in Tiger Brands. Given the success of the current feeding programme, the foundation intends to expand its activities to other schools across the country. This will be funded by increasing the trickle dividend from 15% to 30% from January 2015.
Since inception, the programme has demonstrated that an effective public-private partnership can make a significant difference to the lives of learners via an in-school feeding programme, contributing to improved attendance, class participation and performance while helping to reduce obesity.
The foundation fulfils its mission in partnership with a number of stakeholders, including:
The programme has been instrumental in supporting 229 jobs for food handlers who prepare the breakfasts provided by the foundation. Each food handler is employed by the DBE and offered a stipend by the foundation.
In the Lady Frere district, Eastern Cape, our in-school breakfast programme covers 27 schools. It supplements the government’s national school nutrition programme (NSNP), ensuring these vulnerable learners have two nutritious meals per day. In addition, a programme to support these learners over the July and December holidays was established, with food parcels distributed in June 2015.
In the Western Cape and Free State, 6 040 food parcels were distributed to learners in 10 primary schools participating in the breakfast programme at the start of the July school holidays.
In March 2015, Meqheleng Primary School in Ficksburg (Free State) was awarded first prize in the NSNP best school awards. The foundation sponsors this prize which entails adopting the school onto the in-school breakfast feeding programme, and R450 000 towards constructing a school kitchen.
In July, the Deben Primary School in Kathu, Northern Cape, was adopted onto the programme. In Kathu, the programme is implemented with the financial support of a corporate partner, Sishen Solar Facility. We are excited about this development, which is the first partnership of its kind for the foundation.
Tiger Brands supports and respects the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights and endeavours to ensure the group is not complicit in any related abuses. We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind, nor any form of forced or child labour.
There were no reported incidents of human rights violations in 2015.