Following the successful opening of Nozinga’s Market in Gugulethu in October, which marked the expansion of the programme to the Western Cape from Gauteng, Ndwamba Market was launched in Nyanga with a crowd of residents queuing to become its first customers.
Pick n Pay and its partners in the programme upgrade spaza stores to meet the needs of customers and communities, helping to grow a new generation of modern retail entrepreneurs. It is a collaborative effort between Pick n Pay, the Old Mutual Foundation, Masisizane Fund, Brimstone, the Western Cape Department of Economic Development and Tourism and the City of Cape Town.
Liwani’s expanded staff complement has received training in IT systems, customer service, hygiene and more traditional retailing skills like baking and butchery that open fresh opportunities for each of them.
Liwani took over Ndwamba when her father died in 1995, when she was just 21, and is excited to take her business to a whole new level. “We were thinking of how to expand when Pick n Pay approached us, and this is the fulfilment of a dream. We’ll be the only branded supermarket in Nyanga,” she says.
Pick n Pay has worked with its suppliers to kit out Ndwamba with new refrigeration and IT systems and it will stock more than 1,000 lines of edible and non-edible groceries, fresh produce and perishables. Services like money transfer, ticketing, airtime and data, bill payments, lottery tickets and prepaid electricity add to the convenience.
The opening of Ndwamba is part of phase two of the spaza modernisation programme, following the highly successful pilot phase in Gauteng last year.
Pick n Pay deputy CEO Richard van Rensburg says: “This programme is proof that there is space for both large and small retailers in the modern economy and shows we can work together to unlock exciting new opportunities."
Liwani says she is excited about the new-look store, and the benefits it will bring to those who live in Nyanga. “We are also going to be employing people from Nyanga in the store, so it’s a win-win situation.”
