Devising a Program to Feed 100,000 Kids
Bertie Hechter , South Africa
Coastal Food Services CC was awarded a contract during 1995 to feed +-100,000 children 3 times a week. What made this exciting and innovative was that there was no previous example to follow. Nor were there any software programs available to cater for this specific need. It gave me the chance to set the benchmark in terms of administration systems in the School Feeding Program.I am a person that thrives under pressure, and nothing gives me more satisfaction than to tackle the impossible and to make it work.
These children were in schools scattered over 3 districts in +- 300 schools in the rural areas of the Transkei in South Africa. Some of these schools could not be reached by roads and the majority of schools were accessible by gravel roads of various degrees of quality.
They were to be fed with 100gm of brown bread, 20gm peanut butter and 200ml juice. This equates to +-12,500 loaves of brown bread, 2,000 kg of peanut butter and 20,000 litre of juice 3 times a week.
On the Wednesday I was roped in to run the program. Details were sketchy. Between the Wednesday and the Friday I was trying to establish from the Provincial Government the extend of the contract. The contract was awarded and signed on Friday following (the 3rd day after I was roped in). We were expected to start feeding the next week.
Between the Friday and the next Tuesday (5 days) I laid down the basic infrastructure to be able to bring in the required stock and to be able to distribute them effectively to the schools. In between negotiating with sub-contractors to deliver the stock and negotiating warehousing and prices for the necessary food, I was also busy writing the software program that I needed to be able to control the operation.
On the Wednesday I was able to start feeding and the software program, although very basic, was in place.
9 Months later I was in control of feeding +- 750,000 children 5 days a week. By then I have created my own software system including filing system and paper flow system to cope with the following.
Statistics
Stock per day
Children 750,000
Loaves of bread 75,000
Peanutbutter (Kg) 15,000
Juice (litre) 150,000
Subcontractors+- 2,500
Paper work
1 X delivery note per school per day
Schools +- 4,000
Delivery notes per day 4,000
Delivery notes per week 20,000
Avg school term weeks 8
Delivery notes per term 160,000
Claims
Claims = 1 claim per school per week
Schools +- 4,000
Avg school term weeks 8
Total claims per school term 32,000
Leading Schedule to accompany claims 32,000
Paper per term
Total pieces of paper created 224,000
In setting this up I needed:
• Out of the box thinking
• Negotiating skills
• Organisational skills
• People skills
• Raw guts
• Ablity to work under extreme pressure
• Amazing amount of just pure hard work
It was very rewarding to be able to look at the whole operation knowing that everything that is being done - from the software, filing system, paper flow system to the statistics that I could present to the Provincial Government was my brainchild.
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