Bokashi Bran and Composting South Africa: Turning Food Waste into a Resource

Bronwyn Jones, founder of Bokashi Bran, tells us about Bokashi, a Japanese fermentation method that lets people compost cooked food, meat, and dairy waste that is normally excluded from home composting and sent to landfill. But the catch is, as she explains, that food waste sent to landfill produces roughly 627kg of CO2-equivalent emissions per ton, versus under 10kg when composted with Bokashi, a saving of about 98%.
She describes how households use sealed buckets layered with bokashi bran before emptying them into a compost heap or trench, and how the business has scaled commercially, supplying hotel groups like Southern Sun and training staff across kitchens nationwide with standard operating procedures.
Bronwyn shares an ambitious idea for partnering with delivery services like Checkers Sixty60 to swap out household food-waste buckets during grocery deliveries, creating jobs for “food waste entrepreneurs” along the way. She reflects on the patience entrepreneurship demands, and closes with her hope that Bokashi becomes as habitual as brushing your teeth.

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Behind the Conversation

From a Bucket of Scraps to a 98% Difference

by Babette Gallard

What struck me about Bronwyn was the sheer practicality of what she is doing. Climate change can feel so enormous that it is hard to know what any individual can possibly do about it. Then Bronwyn starts talking about a bucket of kitchen scraps and a handful of bran. The figure that stayed with me was 98%. Diverting food waste from landfill and composting it instead can reduce its carbon footprint by around 98%. But I also loved the simplicity of Bronwyn’s answer to all the reasons we give ourselves for not composting: no garden, no time, living in a flat. Separate the food waste, sprinkle on the Bokashi and close the bucket.

By the end of our conversation, Bronwyn’s prediction that one day Bokashi might be as ordinary as toothpaste didn’t seem far-fetched at all.
Watch Bronwyn explain how a simple bucket of food waste can become part of a much bigger solution. Bokashi Bran

Watch Bronwyn explain how a simple bucket of food waste can become part of a much bigger solution. Bokashi Bran