Healthier stokvels? Pooling your rands, but not your nutrition
Stokvels could help low-income households eat better, but their existing buying systems reinforce diets dominated by sugar, cooking oil and other shelf-stable goods.
South Africa's stokvels, community savings groups, possess significant purchasing power that could be harnessed to combat poor nutrition, according to a University of Cape Town study. However, these groups are primarily using their collective strength to buy inexpensive, abundant, and easily stored food items, rather than prioritizing nutritional value.
To tap into the potential of stokvels for healthier eating, the study suggests integrating nutritional considerations into their established buying practices. With between 10 to 30 members each contributing between R200 to R1 500 monthly, stokvels already have the infrastructure for a nutrition program. The challenge lies in leveraging their trust, accountability, and collective decision-making to promote healthier food choices without compromising affordability or practicality.
Recommendations include negotiating food bundles with retailers that include more nutritious options, offering subsidies or vouchers for healthier items, incorporating short nutrition discussions during regular stokvel meetings, and using WhatsApp messaging to provide recipes, meal-planning tips, and information on affordable healthy food.
While stokvels are predominantly led by women, with 95% of the surveyed groups being women-led, some groups may exclude certain individuals due to contribution reliability. The study emphasizes that stokvels should be viewed as a complementary tool, not a substitute, for broader food security and public health initiatives.
Written by urgent.news from The Citizen's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
