Cape Town faces a significant and growing burden of diet-related diseases with diabetes, heart disease and stroke among the leading causes of premature death in the Western Cape.

The City of Cape Town workforce are not immune to these challenges. A recent survey of City staff showed that 30% of staff have high blood pressure and 15% have abnormal sugar levels, placing them at increased risk of heart disease and diabetes.

These findings mirror trends and have implications for staff wellbeing, productivity, and long-term health costs.

Importantly, staff engagement data demonstrate demand for change, with 91% of City staff requesting or supporting healthier food and beverage options in workplace and City-managed settings.

‘Last year, our clinics screened more than 740 000 people for diabetes and hypertension and treated over 128 000. Treatment alone is not enough, and we’re taking another step towards the prevention of these lifestyle diseases. It starts with healthy food, its availability and cost. Our aim is to give people the option to choose healthier food.

‘We’re launching the Good for You Healthy Food Guidelines to make it easier for our employees to make healthier choices. This means staff, and visitors to our buildings, will be able to purchase healthy food from vendors already in our facilities. If we get this right, it will help us build a city where healthier choices are the easier choices,’ said Mayoral Committee Member for Community Services and Health, Councillor Francine Higham.

The initiative kicked off at the Cape Town Civic Centre yesterday, 12 February, and food vendors have been capacitated to provide healthier foods at their stalls and an incentive system that encourages them to implement the guidelines has been put into place.

In addition, the City will:

• Implement Healthy Food Guidelines across all City-controlled environments
• Ensure healthy food and beverage options are the default, not the exception
• Reduce availability and promotion of sugar-sweetened beverages and ultra-processed foods
• Support water as the drink of choice
• Align food procurement, vending, catering, and events with nutrition standards
• Integrate food guidelines with health promotion, NCD prevention, and food security initiatives
• Use the City’s regulatory, procurement, and convening power to shape healthier food environments

‘We hope that this starting point opens the door to create healthier food environments across our city, and that the City, as a caring employer, sets an example for all other employers in Cape Town. This is about creating a culture of wellness, supporting healthier lifestyles, and about recognising that work environments play a vital role in health. While this intervention targets the food vendors at the Civic Centre, at its heart is the wellness of employees who sit at desks, work shifts, and sometimes spend long hours on the road. And like the rest of the population, many of our employees are living with, or are at risk of, non-communicable diseases. This is why we are taking this first step in creating an enabling environment for easy access to healthy food options.

‘I’m pleased that we have partnered with the food vendors, and that the vendors have eagerly embraced the new journey. The incentive scheme recognises that change costs time and effort, and that partnerships work better than instructions. That approach aligns very well with how Corporate Services tries to operate more broadly,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Corporate Services, Alderman Theresa Uys.

‘Cape Town is demonstrating how cities can lead on prevention by shaping healthier food environments within their own institutions,’ said Joseph Ngamije, Deputy Director for Africa, Partnership for Healthy Cities. ‘By embedding nutrition standards into procurement, vending, and workplace settings, the City is taking practical, evidence-based steps that reduce the risk of hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, and setting an example other cities can follow,’ said Joseph Ngamije, Deputy Director for Africa, Partnership for Healthy Cities.