Hierdie voorafverpakte voedsel is bederfbaar.

Yes. Hierdie is the Afrikaans demonstrative for both this and these. Afrikaans does not usually change the word the way English does.

In this sentence, voedsel is a mass noun, so the natural English meaning is this rather than these.

Because hierdie already fills that determiner slot.

In English, you also would not say this the food. In the same way, Afrikaans uses hierdie voedsel, not hierdie die voedsel.

So the structure is simply:

hierdie + voorafverpakte + voedsel

Afrikaans often writes compounds as one word. Here voorafverpakte is built from the idea of packed beforehand / pre-packed.

So instead of writing something like vooraf verpakte in ordinary standard spelling, Afrikaans normally joins it into one compound adjective: voorafverpakte.

This is very common in Afrikaans, especially in formal or label-style language.

Because they are being used in two different ways.

• voorafverpakte comes before the noun and directly describes voedsel. That is an attributive adjective.
• bederfbaar comes after is. That is a predicative adjective.

In Afrikaans, adjectives used before a noun often take an ending, while adjectives after is usually stay in their basic form.

So:

• voorafverpakte voedsel
• voedsel is bederfbaar

Also, verpakte is a participial-type adjective, so the -te ending is part of that adjectival form.

They are related, but not always identical in tone.

• voedsel = a more formal, technical, or general word for food
• kos = the everyday word most people use in normal conversation

So on packaging, in regulations, in health contexts, or in formal writing, voedsel sounds very natural. In casual speech, many speakers would more often say kos.

It is built from:

• bederf = spoil, go bad
• -baar = a suffix meaning something like -able or capable of being

So bederfbaar literally means something like able to spoil or liable to spoil, which is why it is translated as perishable.

This -baar ending is useful to recognize in other words too.

Yes, completely normal.

The structure is:

Hierdie + voorafverpakte voedsel + is + bederfbaar

That is a very standard main-clause pattern in Afrikaans: subject + verb + complement

It is quite close to English word order in this kind of sentence.

You would usually use the Afrikaans double nie pattern:

Hierdie voorafverpakte voedsel is nie bederfbaar nie.

Afrikaans commonly uses nie ... nie around the part being negated. That is one of the biggest differences from English.

A simple English-style approximation is HEER-dee.

A few helpful notes:

• the first part sounds like heer
• the d is clear
• the last part sounds like dee

So do not pronounce it like English here-dye. A closer Afrikaans rhythm is HEER-dee.

In standard Afrikaans, voorafverpakte is normally written as one word in this kind of compound adjective.

Learners often want to separate long Afrikaans compounds because English often does, but Afrikaans strongly prefers joining them. So voorafverpakte voedsel is the form to learn.