Johannesburg | Wednesday
THE Johannesburg Fresh Produce Market (JFPM) will be relaunched on Friday with growth strategies that range from improving conditions for its vast R400-million hawker client base to examining the viability of trendy organic produce.
Far from its origins as a barter market started in central Johannesburg in 1899, the sprawling City Deep complex earned R1,26-billion for the city’s coffers in the previous financial year.
When it was corporatised by the Johannesburg Metro Council last July its directors were told to improve that figure, which forms 30% of the R3,8-billion generated by the country’s 17 produce markets.
The latest results are currently with auditors and should be released at the end of September.
The market charges producers a set five percent commission with market agents charging a further 7,5%. It moved 800 000 tons of produce last year with customers coming from as far afield as Mozambique and camping outside to take new supplies of garlic and ginger to Maputo.
The JFPM’s trade excludes most large supermarkets which primarily source their produce directly from farmers.
Up to 40% of the R1,26-billion comes via sales to hawkers and, according to chief executive Japhta Sibiya, future plans include helping them access business finance. As most hawkers arrive at the market at 4am plans also include providing crches for children.
The market also hopes to draw emerging farmers and have singled out farmers in Nelspruit, Mpumalanga and in the Makhathini Flats near Jozini in KwaZulu-Natal as ”slumbering giants” who have the potential to tailor their crops in rich soil according to market trends.
Sibiya said R500 000 was spent last year on cleaning the food halls and security has been improved to prevent bag snatching and car theft.
Platform traders people who sell goods at the market immediately after buying will be relocated to a nearby site and infrastructure like cold rooms and electricity have been upgraded.
Immediate priorities are to meet international requirements to enable increased exports and future plans include the possibility of e-commerce which would open global markets, a packaging plant for producers and a processing plant to supply the hospitality industry with ”ready for the pot” vegetables.
Plans are also afoot to form two or three transport networks to cut down on the up to 10000 trucks who rattle through the market.
Transport and packaging are farmers’ biggest expenses.
Discussions are underway with Mozambique, Angola and Botswana to help revive and establish their markets and form partnerships with the JFPM.
Longer term plans include buying shares in foreign markets, forming one company to manage all the country’s markets and bringing other products like fish and flowers all under the one roof.
Finance for the expansion projects would be raised as joint venture projects with the Development Bank, the Land Bank, whose chairman Bonile Jack is also JFPM chairman, and the Industrial Development Corporation.
And, said Sibiya, the European trend of organic produce could also be examined as European concerns about food safety spill into South Africa, although there was no organic produce on the market yet.
”We want to be a world class African market in a world class African city,” said Sibiya. – Sapa