Informal food production and trade in South Africa: policy action to bridge inequalities

Drawing on the findings across two project reports, this policy brief seeks to outline practical steps to design and implement fairer, more effective policies for informal food supply in South Africa. It recommends uniform and coherent definitions of informality across every segment of the food production-to-consumption value chain to foster clarity and multiple spinoff benefits. Drawing further on insights from global experiences, it argues that the efficacy, consistency, harmony and coherence of these policies require an integrated food value chain (FVC) lens from the onset (Hara et al., 2025; Mbanda et al., 2025). This allows the brief to engage and propose critical reflection for policymakers as it pertains to regulating FVCs in South Africa towards bridging inequalities. The brief first elaborates and provides substantiation for these claims from the two studies. This outlines the status quo in relation to how FVCs are understood and how informality is regulated to illustrate and highlight more clearly the different nuances, disagreements, and meanings of informality.