Refreshi scales food-waste grocery marketplace in South Africa

Refreshi says it has expanded from 35 partner stores to more than 700 locations across four provinces, with partnerships including SPAR, Bootlegger, Vida e Caffè, King Pie, Château Gâteaux, Vovo Telo, Ou Meul, Newmark Hotels and OK Mini Marts. The company says it is adding 10 to 15 stores a week and now helps prevent more than 20,000 meals a month from ending up in landfills.

The model is simple but economically useful. Through the app, shoppers reserve and pay for “Surprise Bags” that contain fresh but unsold food collected during a designated window. The bags are sold at 50% to 60% below original retail value, with participating stores deciding what surplus items to include.

For retailers, the appeal is not just waste reduction but cash recovery. Jakob Holbak, Refreshi’s chief executive and founder, said the R15 million returned to stores shows that “reducing food waste does not have to be a cost to business.” In effect, the platform monetises inventory that has already been paid for but would otherwise be a total loss.

The company’s research with the Consumer Goods Council of South Africa suggests the model is gaining traction at store level. A study of 50 independently owned SPAR-format stores found they sold more than 23,200 Surprise Bags between April 2025 and July 2026, with monthly sales rising from 430 bags in June 2025 to 1,939 in June 2026. Stores offering bakery items alongside fruit and vegetables sold 77% more bags a month than those offering just one category, indicating that product mix materially affects demand.

That matters for investors and retailers because it shows surplus-food recovery can be operationally scalable, not merely philanthropic. For chains and franchises, it creates a new revenue line from what used to be waste, while helping stores defend traffic against price-sensitive consumers. For smaller operators, it can also soften the impact of tighter margins and weaker discretionary spending.

The consumer backdrop is equally important. Adalytica’s spending gauges show food and grocery spending sentiment remains neutral but fragile, underscoring the pressure on South African households to stretch budgets. Against that backdrop, a 60% discount on food is not a niche sustainability play; it is a value proposition that can pull demand away from full-price grocery, café and restaurant purchases.

The broader implication is that food recovery is becoming part of the affordability infrastructure, not just an environmental initiative. If Refreshi reaches its conservative target of more than 2,000 participating stores within the next year, it could deepen competition in the value segment of South African retail and food service, while diverting more edible food from landfill.

The bull case is that the marketplace keeps scaling as retailers see a direct financial return and households keep hunting for cheaper meals. The bear case is that supply consistency, consumer repeat behaviour and store-level execution cap the model’s reach. For now, the economics are pointing in the same direction: what was once waste is becoming inventory, income and a lower-cost meal for South African shoppers.