Food systems have outcomes related to three goals: food and nutrition security; livelihoods and economic inclusion; and environmental sustainability. Place-based approaches help to delineate the adequate territories in which coalitions of actors can address such goals. In the case of food, they facilitate food system resilience through identifying opportunities for adaptation to change and offer risk management to deal with external shocks. In many countries, local authorities and communities were central in the early response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The South African experience is illustrative of their potential roles in a time of crisis. Although South Africa's provinces have restricted competency for food system governance, the Western Cape Province adopted a pro-active approach and developed from 2014 a food security strategy where it commits to a wide range of interventions. Related and following local debates provided a fertile context which allowed further engagement about ways to improve food governance. It facilitated the emergence of multiple community-led initiatives to address the loss of livelihoods and food insecurity during the crisis. This experience illustrates the potential to produce polycentric forms of governance that can progressively result in collaborative governance; it also reveals how embryonic territorial approaches addressing food system issues can emerge.