According to South African food labelling rules, packaged food has to be labelled with its country of origin. However, lawyers wrote the rules, so it’s not quite as straightforward as it sounds.

‘Product of South Africa’ on foodstuffs means that all the main ingredients, processing and labour used to make the foodstuff are from South Africa.

‘Produced in South Africa’ and ‘Manufactured in South Africa’ on food labels are legally the same as ‘Processed in South Africa’, which means some or all of the food has been imported and then, for example, been locally frozen, or had additives or nutrients added to it. It takes as little intervention as altering the food’s original state for it to qualify for the ‘Manufactured’ and ‘Produced in RSA’ label.

Tiger Brands uses only the ‘Manufactured in RSA’ label, as far as I can see. If that really means that they import all the food or if they are simply too lazy to distinguish their labelling, I am still unable to tell 1 email and 3 phone calls later.

My personal labelling nemesis is ‘Packaged in South Africa’, which you sometimes find on dry goods, because it means I have no idea where a product comes from. Retailers are allowed to use the ‘Packaged in’ label, but only in addition to displaying the country of origin as well. Clearly that sometimes falls through the cracks.

Similarly there are circumstances where products can be labelled ‘Produce of New Zealand, Australia, United States or South Africa’. You’ll find this on frozen goods and on some fresh goods where packaging is pre-prepared before sourcing, or the content could come from more than one country.

So first prize is to buy ‘Product of South Africa’ labelled foodstuffs. The consolation prize goes to ‘Produced’ or ‘Manufactured in South Africa’ where you might be supporting South African manufacture but you can be certain that you are at least supporting some local processing or packing jobs.