• Danny Diliberto started a small Cape Town soup kitchen outside his Italian restaurant 12 years ago and fed 70 homeless people.
• Today, Ladles of Love has served more than 48 million meals over 10 years, and is one of SA’s biggest feeders of pre-school children.
• How did that happen? In one of the most difficult spaces, non-profit, Danny puts it down to one word: “seva”.
• This is our fourth story in our series SA Success Stories: Origin stories of successful SA businesses, NGOs and individuals.

In July 2014, Danny Diliberto was a manager of an Italian restaurant on St George’s Mall in Cape Town.

He was attending an Art of Living course that encouraged attendees to find ways to give back to society.

It was here that he had an idea that would change the course of his life and thousands of South Africans over the next decade.

He just didn’t know it then.

“I was introduced to an ancient Sanskrit word called ‘seva’. It means giving of yourself, wanting absolutely nothing in return, not even the joy of giving. That was very inspirational for me, because I was always taught you give to get back,” Danny recalls.

“And on that same day, I had an interaction with a homeless man, and I realised in that moment, I had to start a soup kitchen.”

Minestrone soup was not difficult to make. He had a premises, the produce, and he had the inspiration.

“What I do remember is telling my manager who worked for me, ‘We’re starting a soup kitchen, it’s going to be once a week, but I can tell you that’s just the beginning. We’ll probably be cooking six days a week and serving more than one soup kitchen.’

“I knew then it would be more than just a pot of soup.”

And so he rustled his staff together, and on a chilly Tuesday evening that July, he put a table outside his restaurant and served 70 homeless people.

He had no plan at this point, just a belief. And what would he call it?

“It was called nothing. We called it a love kitchen,” he laughs.

Today, Ladles of Love serves more than 160 early childhood development (ECD) centres in the Western Cape, Gauteng and Kuruman in the Northern Cape.

They deliver nutrition to more than 15 500 children (and their teachers) through two meals daily.

They employ 30 staff, source up to 15 tons of food a week to help these centres produce the meals developed by nutritionists.

And it all started with one man being impacted by a word on a chilly winter’s day in Cape Town.

Finding focus in a demanding non-profit space

The soup kitchen was buzzing once a week. Using restaurant resources like bread, the operation was in full swing. Cooking a pot of soup was not hugely expensive either.

Within a year, Danny was serving at two soup kitchens weekly and set a goal for himself: to cook for 600 people on Mandela Day 2015 and give them a hoodie for the winter chill.

“I achieved it, and I was so excited with myself that I realised this soup kitchen was not going away and now needed a name. People also started wanting to give me money.”

Thus, Ladles of Love was born, and its Facebook page created, in the era before Instagram and TikTok.

Danny’s initial excitement took him off in many different directions, trying to solve many more problems, like doing laundry for homeless people.

It was then that he chatted to a friend who had been running his own NPO for three years.

“He said something so powerful, ‘You know what Danny, you know how to feed people. Stick to that’.

“And that was it. I realised that focus was important and that I had to drop everything else.

“Coming from a Mediterranean home, food was the centre of our home. I was blessed with an abundance of beautiful food, and I got to see that when food is cooked with love, it feeds the soul as well. If I’m not going to serve the food we cook to my mother, I’m not going to serve it to the homeless, and this became the heart of Ladles.”

His friend’s non-profit worked with many schools, and it was through him that he learnt how many children were going to school hungry – 28% were affected by stunting and 18% by malnutrition*.

From there, he knew he had to expand to feeding many more people, including children.

Expansion, leaving the restaurant, and a new kitchen

Having operated out of a restaurant up until then, it was time to expand. But how does a non-profit that gives food to the most vulnerable, for nothing in return, expand?

Danny said the growth was bigger than him. Things just started happening.

“When I needed a social media person, someone popped up. Money just started coming to me through donations. People started giving food.

“There was never scarcity, if that makes sense.”

Around 2017, a friend had a space in Roeland Street that could be turned into a permanent kitchen.

And over the next 18 months, it all led to Danny facing an inevitable choice: stay in the restaurant and leave Ladles, or move to Ladles and leave the restaurant.

“I knew the answer. I just needed the courage,” he said.

He and his partners sold the Doppio Zero on 31 July 2019, and on 1 August, he walked into his new kitchen based at The Hope Exchange on Roeland Street.

‘We weren’t that little soup kitchen anymore’

A few months later, in March 2020, Covid-19 hit, and with it came Danny’s revelation of what Ladles was going to become – and has remained – until today.

“I knew exactly what I had to do. Get as much food out to as many people as I can. I didn’t know how, or where I was going to get the money; I just knew I had to do it,” he said.

“But when you have what I call ‘Godly conversations’, you do not analyse them, you do not doubt them, you just listen to them.”

Using all his connections, know-how and reliance on “seva”, he started building an operation that could act as an essential service getting food out to the most vulnerable during the heart of lockdown.

In May 2020, something led him to start his first Facebook Live post from his kitchen. From these, they raised R5 million through sheer reach, sourced a venue at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC), and started pumping out 50 tonnes of food a week and 7 000 cooked meals a day.

Today, that model now best describes what Ladles is: supplying good food to organisations and kitchens all over the country, so that they can cook the food themselves – the majority of them being ECD centres and pre-schools.

Danny knew the CTICC operation was the pivotal moment. “This is the new Ladles. We just weren’t that little soup kitchen anymore.”

Lessons: When you give, your shoulders grow

When asked what he is most proud of, he said: “It’s hard to say. Whatever Ladles is today, it is not because of me, but through me. So how can I be proud of that?”

The soup kitchen on Roeland Street is still ongoing, and long-term, his hope is to find a hall that he can turn into a restaurant, so that the homeless can sit in a restaurant and be served.

They also hope to increase the number of pre-school children served to 20 000 by the end of the year and 50 000 by 2030.

So, having looked back at his story and asked what his special ingredient was, as an encouragement to other NPOs, this was his reflection.

“I knew Ladles was going to be something, but I didn’t expect this.

“When you perform ‘seva’, in its true essence, two things will happen: you will always be provided for, and as you grow, so your shoulders will grow to take on the responsibility.

“That has been the Ladles of Love story. I’ve always been provided for.”

And finally, what next?

“I have no idea. But I know my why, which is to touch people’s lives with love, dignity and respect, and that is my north star,” he finished.

This is the fourth story in our series SA Success Stories: Origin stories of successful SA business, NGOs and individuals. Visit our special site here.

*Statistics updated Jan 2026 (https://hsrc.ac.za/)