Gcwalisa, Rethinking Food Savings: Cutting Costs and Waste with Reusable Packaging for Local Communities
Alexandra, Johannesburg, South Africa, 04 April 2025 – Gcwalisa, launches a pioneering method to tackling food security in South Africa while solving the issue of waste in food packaging.
Gcwalisa, which literally means ‘fill up’ or ‘refill’ in isiZulu, sells nutritious food and basic household products through a pay and weigh model, providing relief to low-income households amid rising food costs.
Up to now, Gcwalisa encouraged customers to bring their own packaging, alternatively selling food through biodegradable packaging. According to their research, the organisation found that packaging amounts for 8-15% of food costs in South Africa. Starting today, Gcwalisa will pilot a new reuse system as part of the GIZ project ‘Circular City Labs’. Customers can now fill their products in durable, reusable containers, paying a small deposit which will refunded once the product is used up and the container is returned to the store. The entity hits two birds with one stone by reducing food prices through reduced packaging in the value chain and encouraging a zero-waste-culture. The organisation ensures the reduction of waste by urging customers to reuse containers.
Gcwalisa is a beneficiary of the project ‘Circular City Labs CCL’, implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), funded through the BMZ Initiative for Climate and Environmental Protection (IKU). In South Africa, the project is carried out in collaboration with the local implementing partner Plastics SA which is an umbrella body for the industry and has a membership base of around 1,800 companies. It represents all sectors of the South African Plastics Industry value chain including polymer producers and importers, converters, machine suppliers, fabricators and recyclers. Plastics SA will also conduct an accelerator programme for businesses that intend to make a difference in the circular economy space and encourage the re-use of plastic.
CCL aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through waste prevention by promoting reusable packaging systems and strengthening the participation of women in local circular economies. Reusable packaging systems are an important part of the circular economy, less packaging leads to less waste.
Reuse systems employ a circular system where packaging can be used, cleaned, refilled, and reused for the same purpose, over and over again.
In GIZ South Africa, Lesotho and eSwatini, the CCL project, is part of the Centre for Cooperation with the Private Sector (CCPS).
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