Originating in South Africa in 1987, Nando’s now has over 1,200 restaurants in 23 countries. It is the first restaurant chain in Africa to expand beyond the continent. As a growing, diverse and complex brand, Nando’s believes that its business success functions in symbiosis with the social value it creates. As such, Impact Amplifier has been working with Nando’s for over ten years on a broad range of projects to both understand and create social impact with its business.
Building Resilience and Impact Assessments
South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi
2012 – Present
IA Role
The current projects Impact Amplifier is working on include:
- Supply Chain Screening and Impact Assessments – conducting audits of its large-scale suppliers in Africa to ensure legal compliance and a values alignment. It also includes an annual Impact Assessment of its small farmer peri-peri supply chain in Mozambique, Malawi, and Zimbabwe. Small farmers produce 90%+ of Nando’s peri-peri. This assessment determines the impact chili production has on the farmers access to housing, food security, energy, water, education and healthcare.
- Employee Resilience – Recognising that many of its restaurant employees form part of the working poor, Nando’s has and is developing innovative approaches to addressing its staff’s access to healthcare, transportation, savings, and food security. Impact Amplifier is working on the impact framework, research and interventions needed, at a global scale, to realise these intentions.
- Community Engagement – to ensure all its restaurants are actively contributing to their local communities and to facilitate opportunities to learn from each other, Impact Amplifier is developing is documenting all Nando’s community engagement and developing an online portal to share experiences and facilitate opportunities to collaborate across markets and regions.
Status Update
January 2025
Over the last 12 months, Impact Amplifier has been supporting Nando’s across a range of initiatives including: 1) Conducting Impact assessments of subsistence farmers supply Nando’s in Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Initially, these were focused on Peri-Peri, but in 2024 Nando’s expanded its subsistence farmer supply chain to include paprika and cayenne peppers. This expansion now includes 1,300 farmers growing cash crops for Nando’s in Southern Africa. These assessments are designed to measure the social, economic and environmental impact growing these crops is having on the participating farmers. 2) Implementing baseline studies in South Africa on Nando’s restaurant employees. These studies are designed to better understand how the employee populations are addressing their basic human needs – healthcare, housing, education, food security, energy and water access. The intention is to understand these issues so that solutions can be designed for the most pressing challenges being confronted. 3) Conducting ethical supplier assessments on multiple companies Nando’s is already or is considering doing business with. These assessments review legal compliance, labour standards and practices, employee wellness, health and safety, and environmental practices.