Show you care: think, look and buy local
Buy Local Lowveld hosted a breakfast at The Blue Gate last week. The initiative aims to get locals to focus their spending on locally produced products and locally run businesses.
In an effort to kick-start the local economy and support local business, Buy Local Lowveld was launched in 2020 and hosted its fifth Buy Local Breakfast last week.
Business owners, entrepreneurs and members of the public were invited to join Buy Local Lowveld on March 4 as it shared its vision for this year.
The morning also touched on why the campaign was started, and what its hopes are for the future. The main presentation was hosted by the founding member, Rob Gibbs, and one key factor noted was that the wealth of our economy is being concentrated into fewer and fewer hands.
Gibbs said that with the current version of capitalism in South Africa, too many people are being left behind and there is little protection for local businesses in our country. The effects of this on the Lowveld economy are evident as local farmers and the agricultural sector struggle to compete and are forced to shut down.
Buy Local Lowveld aims to stimulate the Lowveld economy by encouraging local shoppers, households, businesses and organisations to shift their current spend from businesses owned outside of the local economy, to those which are established, owned and run here.
If not, these rands leave our region and are shifted to other areas where these companies are based – the benefits are thus reaped outside of our region.
One of the exciting initiatives launched is the Buy Local branding campaign. Through this campaign a local businesses can brand itself as a proud local business in the Lowveld.
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The aim is to create a unified identity among local businesses within the Lowveld. In time, the buying public will be able to recognise the badge in shops or offices and on products and branding, and they will know that if they spend their money at that particular business, they are supporting the growth of the local economy.
Buy Local Lowveld believes that small local companies create sustainable jobs, identify and encourage new business opportunities, provide good service and also offer vital support to community institutions and organisations such as schools, sports clubs and charities.
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Another exciting initiative planned for 2022 is to create a channel for small farmers to reach the market easily. The goal is to connect the local farmers with the buying public in the hopes that every division in the agricultural sector, from eggs, dairy, poultry, fresh produce, nuts, honey, spices, and even coffee, will flourish.
The next step will be to establish local food markets where local produce can be sold, in every town.
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