Pinetown (SA) – The Okapi division of Southey Holdings Industries, one of two local manufacturers of steel shanks for footwear, has decided to discontinue production of that line as of this month.

        Accountant Derek Wright said shanks were one of a basket of products to be discontinued, and that the group would concentrate on the products “which generate 80% of our turnover”.

        “Our last sale of shoe shanks was actually a year ago, in February 2016,” he said. “The company also closed its Isithebe factory in September, and relocated to group premises in Pinetown.”

        He said Okapi planned to dispose of its stocks of shanks “at competitive prices”. – [+27 (0)32 459 2883, dwright@southey.co.za]

Johannesburg (SA) – The 2nd annual Personal Protective Equipment Symposium will be held on March 29 and 30 at the 3M auditorium in Woodmead, Johannesburg, according to a release from organiser Amabhubesi.

        It will cover PPE issues including comfort, productivity considerations, eye protection, compliance & style trends in PPE, women’s PPE, PPE for the forestry industry, safety footwear, innovation and technologies within the PPE sector and the challenges faced by end users in acquiring PPE with proper fit for both female and male employees.

        Confirmed panelists are Rani Naidoo-3M South Africa, Isak Marais- Bramhope Group, Neels Nortje- SAIOSH, Jaco Combrinck-3M South Africa, Joep Joubert-IOSM, Dr. Natalie Scheepers, Debbie Joynt- Select PPE, Vijay Nundlall-Sibanye Gold, Raymond Mousa- One Vision Systems, Ndlela Mazibuko-BBF Safety, Katekani Ngobeni –CSIR, Dale Kennedy- Ergomax, Mark Andersen-LexisNexis’s Compliance Division, Harold Gaze-Occutech-Neptun Boot, Michael Fortune-Uhambo Distributors, Vanessa Ronald- SiSi Women Safety Footwear. – Kelly Siasamba [+27 (0)11 050 7007, Kelly@amabhubesi.co.za]

Durban (SA) – There are no formal charges at this stage against Nikkita Footwear cc or its members, following a raid last Wednesday by the SAPS and the Department of Home Affairs, Sid Singh of Pather & Pather Attorneys Inc said today.

He said at a court appearance on Thursday, the prosecutor had declined to place the matter on the roll – citing insufficient evidence without further investigation.

Pretoria (SA) – The Programme Approval Panel of the IDC’s Clothing & Textile Competitiveness Improvement Programme has approved the formation of a new national cluster to replace the former National Footwear & Leather Cluster, according to acting GM Ernest Heunis.

Likely to be known as the Footwear & Leather Industries Cluster (FLIC), the founding meeting and incorporation meeting will be held on February 15, at the Eddels offices in Pietermaritzburg, and will be attended by representatives of the 4 sub-national clusters who will be its founding members – the Exotic Leather Cluster, the Fast Track Cluster (aka the Foschini/Eddels cluster), the Durban Regional Cluster (the Mr Price cluster), and the Southern Cape Cluster.

“Once it has been founded, other stakeholders will be asked to join, as directors and members,” he said.

Kettering (UK) – SATRA’s Chemical and Analytical Technology group has almost doubled its turnover over the past 5 years, according to a release today. The main product sector SATRA serves are footwear, furniture, toys and personal protective equipment (PPE), and “a sizeable portion of the chemistry team’s business is testing in accordance with restricted substances legislation”, the release said.

“Within Europe, this is mainly driven by REACH (Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006) and the innocuousness requirements for PPE as part of the certification requirements through SATRA’s Notified Body activities.

“A specialist area that has seen major growth is with the assessment of industrial, examination and surgical gloves to determine their level of protection against hazardous chemicals. SATRA can test to the requirements in EN ISO 374-1:2016 so gloves can be certified against this newly published standard. This involves a new requirement to test the degradation of gloves in accordance with EN 374-4:2013 and permeation testing to EN 16523-1:2015. A new area of permeation testing for SATRA in 2016 was testing against chemotherapy drugs to ASTM D6978. Due to the very low detection limits required, SATRA is one of the few laboratories in Europe that can offer this testing service.”

All leather, footwear and leather goods exports to the EU are also subject to REACH requirements. – [http://www.satra.co.uk/]