JSE-listed consumer goods and food company Tiger Brands has reported that three of its manufacturing facilities – the beverages plant and the home and personal care (HPC) plant, in Gauteng, and the Jungle cereals plant, in Cape Town – have achieved zero waste to landfill for three consecutive months.

Collectively, the company says the sites have diverted more than 60 t of waste from landfill through improved waste segregation, operational changes, specialised waste treatment and partnerships that enable materials to be recycled, recovered or repurposed.

Tiger Brands’ 2030 environmental stewardship target is to achieve zero waste to landfill across all its manufacturing plants.

Since 2022, the company says the proportion of the group’s total waste sent to landfill has more than halved from 20% to 9.8% in 2025, with the group currently tracking ahead of its yearly reduction target for the current financial year.

“Achieving zero waste to landfill requires sustained changes in how waste is managed within our factories. It means improving segregation at source, finding the right technical solutions and partners and rethinking established processes.

“Achieving the same outcome across three very different manufacturing sites and waste streams demonstrates that our approach can be replicated as we work towards our 2030 target,” says Tiger Brands chief manufacturing officer Praveen Balgobind.

“Equally, we reduce our environmental impact while improving resource efficiency by keeping materials in productive use through recycling, recovery, reuse and alternative treatment.”

At the beverages plant, Tiger Brands says zero waste to landfill followed several years of progressive improvement.

Interventions included employee training to strengthen waste segregation at source, engagement with suppliers to introduce more recyclable materials and the assessment of individual waste streams to identify viable alternatives to landfill.

The HPC plant adopted a targeted approach to specific waste streams.

Solutions include thermal desorption treatment for pesticide cans, cement kiln co-processing of cream sludge, on-site sorting and recycling of paper, cardboard and plastics and a contractor waste management system to strengthen monitoring and compliance.

Together, the company says these interventions have eliminated the plant’s waste streams to landfill.

At the Jungle plant, waste is diverted through refuse-derived fuel production, composting and conversion to animal feed.

Tiger Brands says improved segregation at source helps maintain the quality of recoverable materials, while partnerships with waste service providers ensure individual waste streams are directed to appropriate recovery or reuse channels.

The company notes that progress across the three sites demonstrates the role of waste segregation, material selection, specialised treatment and waste recovery partnerships in reducing reliance on landfill and moving manufacturing operations toward a more circular approach to resource use.

Waste reduction forms part of Tiger Brands’ broader environmental stewardship strategy, which also includes a focus on reducing production food waste at its operations.

As a signatory to the South African Food Loss and Waste Initiative, the company notes its commitment to reducing production food waste by 50% by 2030.

Having recently achieved this against its 2021 baseline, Tiger Brands notes that it is in the process of setting a new, more ambitious target to drive further reductions of food waste across its operations.