History was made on Thursday in Hammanskraal at Babelegi industrial site when Harvest Group became the only company in South Africa to launch a non-woven fabric machine used for manufacturing raw materials for making baby nappies.

Company marketing director Deon van Wyk said: “We are the only company in South Africa that has got this unique machine that can manufacture the five-layer non-woven material. It is called the SSMMS. That is very technical but it means it has five layers. One strand of the material is 1.6 denier.”

To give a comparison, he said, the silk from a silkworm is one denier, making the product very unique to the market.

“We have got an older machine that does three layers. But, this new machine is imported specifically for baby diapers, which is a huge market in South Africa,” he said.

He said the company exploited the market because the current manufacturer can’t keep up with the demands.

Harvest Group CEO Shenton Sun and Chinese Embassy’s Zhongyi Qiu at Babelegi Industrial Site in Hammanskraal. Picture: Oupa Mokoena / Independent Newspapers

“The time has changed and now everybody is using disposable nappies as cheaply as possible. Our focus is to supply material to the market as cheaply as possible. With this new technology it is very possible to supply good quality material much cheaper than what the old technology was,” he said.

The market for the company, he said, includes everybody who deals with hygiene material. “During Covid-19 we manufactured material for masks. That was huge at that stage. When Covid ended orders stopped coming in for the material,” he said.

He said the investment made through the machine is more than R100 million.

“There is a huge baby diaper manufacturer based in Mozambique and they don’t manufacture the raw material. We manufacture the raw material for them. There is another factory opening behind us to manufacture baby diapers which will make the logistics much easier and save costs,” Van Wyk said.

The material is also used in frost cover, rain covers and covering table grapes, among other multipurposes.

Van Wyk said: “For exports it makes the grapes percentage much higher than the normal plastics because there is no sunburn. Polyethylene is very disadvantaged to the environment and to the products. We have unique products that are breathable, water-resistant and the material upfront is non-fungal material.”

So far, the biggest clients of the company are farmers and the agricultural industry.

“We started on September 1, 2004, in the agricultural sector. We imported containers and didn’t have one client. We got our first client in Marble Hall and sold orange pockets and, as they say, the rest is history. We started infiltrating the market in Tzaneen, Kimberly, Western Cape, Northern Cape, Port Elizabeth,” Van Wyk said.

One of the strides made by the company was to employ more than 800 permanent workers.

Van Wyk said: “One person who got a job is actually caring for four to five people. At the end of the day we are looking after 4 000 people. Every year we donate a lot of maize meals to the parents for their kids. We give every year a gift pack of school stationary for our employees’ children. This new machine created another 200 jobs, which if you multiply it by four people, we are looking after another 800 people.”

Group chief executive Shenton Sun, who was excited about the new technology, said the new machine meant companies would stop importing raw materials for making nappies from China.

“This will make sure that jobs are created to alleviate the plight of local people and help local manufacturers,” he said.

Commercial counsellor from the Chinese Embassy, Zhongyi Qui, said economic and trade cooperation is a magnificent chapter in the bilateral relations between China and South Africa.

“China has been South Africa’s largest trading partner for 15 consecutive years while South Africa has been the largest trading partner for China in Africa for 14 consecutive years,” he said.

So far, he said, more than 200 Chinese companies have invested more than $10 billion in South Africa.

Pretoria News

rapula.moatshe@inl.co.za