South Africa’s stokvels could become an important platform for improving nutrition and food security in low-income communities, but their collective buying power is currently used largely to purchase foods chosen for affordability, quantity, and shelf life rather than for nutritional value, a new University of Cape Town (UCT) study has found.
The findings were published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.
Funded by the International Research Development Centre (IDRC), the study examined how grocery stokvels influence food purchasing and nutrition-related decisions in two low-income communities in Cape Town – Dunoon and Khayelitsha. Researchers interviewed 20 stokvel leaders and held focus group discussions with 40 members.
The researchers found that stokvels are highly organised, socially cohesive groups with established systems for saving, decision-making, and collective purchasing. Groups typically consisted of 10 to 30 members, each contributing between R200 and R1 500 per month. All the stokvels studied operated under formal rules and agreements, and most (85%) imposed penalties for rule violation.
However, this organisational strength was not translating into healthier food choices.
Bulk purchasing occurred across all 20 stokvels with staple foods – sugar, cooking oil and processed meats featuring prominently. In almost all, (19 of the 20 groups, 95%), there was no explicit consideration of nutrition or healthy food choices when food was purchased. Only one group reported considering nutritional value in its purchasing decisions.
“Stokvels already have many of the characteristics that are needed to support a successful nutrition intervention,” says UCT’s health economist Dr Akim Tafadzwa Lukwa, the study’s lead author. “They have trust, accountability, regular meetings, collective decision-making and, importantly, substantial purchasing power. The challenge is to find ways of using these existing structures to increase preference for healthier food while making them affordable and practical.”
The researchers found that pooling money enabled members to buy food in larger quantities and at prices that would often be difficult to achieve individually.
Stokvels compared prices between retailers, negotiated discounts, and sometimes worked directly with supermarkets or wholesalers. These practices helped households stretch their food supplies and manage periods of particularly high financial pressure.
But the same systems that make bulk purchasing effective can also make it difficult to include fresh and perishable foods.
Many stokvels had limited access to cold storage while transport costs, distance to wholesalers, and the need for standardised grocery hampers encouraged purchases of foods that could be transported and stored easily. As a result, procurement tended to favour shelf-stable products over fresh produce.
Dr Lukwa says this creates an opportunity for targeted interventions that work with, rather than against, how stokvels already operate.
Possible approaches include healthier food bundles negotiated with retailers, subsidies for nutritious products, brief nutrition discussions during regular stokvel meetings, and the use of WhatsApp groups to share recipes, meal-planning advice, and information about affordable healthy foods.
“The idea is not to change what stokvels are or to impose an external agenda on them,” says Dr Lukwa. “Nutrition-sensitive interventions would need to fit into existing practices and priorities while giving members practical options that make healthier purchasing possible within their budgets.”
The study also highlighted the predominantly female nature of the stokvels – 95% were women-led, with many groups placing a strong emphasis on household responsibility, reliability, and mutual support.
This social cohesion could provide an important foundation for interventions addressing dietary diversity, food literacy, and healthy meal planning.
However, Dr Lukwa, Feyisayo A. Wayas, Estelle Victoria Lambert, Olufunke Alaba and their “Savings for Health” IDRC collaborators caution that stokvels should not be viewed as a universal solution.
Some groups deliberately exclude younger people or individuals with irregular incomes because they prioritise reliability and financial stability. This means that people who are most vulnerable to food insecurity may not necessarily belong to a stokvel.
“Stokvels should be seen as a complementary platform rather than a replacement for broader food security and public health programmes,” says Dr Lukwa. “Any intervention needs to consider who is reached through these groups and who may be left out.
“We recommend pilot-testing low-intensity interventions, including short nutrition sessions during stokvel meetings, retailer-supported healthy food bundles, and nutrition messaging through WhatsApp.
“Future research should assess whether such interventions can improve dietary diversity and purchasing behaviour while ensuring that they do not deepen existing inequalities in access to healthy food,” Dr Lukwa adds.
“This recommendation from our published study is now being operationalised through our ongoing ROSCAs4FS project, a pragmatic feasibility trial that is currently piloting these very strategies,” Dr Lukwa says. “The trial is testing the feasibility and effectiveness of integrating short nutrition education modules into routine stokvel meetings, retailer-supported healthy food bundles via financial vouchers, and nutrition messaging through digital platforms such as WhatsApp and SMS.”