For the period June 2019 to March 2020, there were 13 670 000 people in South Africa who were regarded as being food insecure (World Food Programme (WFP) 2019). Food and nutrition insecurity in impoverished urban and rural household settings has been a long-standing problem, although there had been a marked decrease between 1999 and 2008. The outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has exacerbated this situation, especially among vulnerable urban households whose rising poverty and unemployment levels have eroded their household income.