About Public Price Institute
Public Price Institute is the enterprise education, consumer-market research, fair pricing dialogue, and market-access centre operating through the Public Price Foundation structure.
Who We Are
Public Price Institute is a professional development centre focused on entrepreneurial education, local consumer markets, business readiness, market access, and practical economic participation. The Institute exists to help entrepreneurs, traders, SMEs, cooperatives, and community enterprises understand markets, enter them properly, and grow with structure.
While Public Price Foundation carries the broader public-benefit and advocacy mandate, the Institute focuses specifically on education, enterprise development, market intelligence, and practical business pathways.
Institute Mandate
Entrepreneurial Learning
Business education for local entrepreneurs, informal traders, start-ups, cooperatives, SMEs, and community-based enterprises.
Consumer Market Access
Guidance on how local consumer markets work, how to position products and services, and how to access real market opportunities.
Fair Pricing Dialogue
Facilitating practical conversations around fair pricing, food affordability, data costs, internet access, infant goods, and essential services.
Enterprise Readiness
Supporting business formalisation, compliance awareness, funding readiness, supplier access, and structured participation.
Relationship with the Foundation
Public Price Institute is run through Public Price Foundation, but it is distinct in function. The Foundation is the public-benefit and advocacy body. The Institute is the education, research, business development, and market-access centre.
What the Institute Does
Business Education
Training and practical guidance in pricing, selling, compliance, digital tools, customer access, business models, and enterprise growth.
Local Trade Development
Supporting township, town, city, rural, and provincial market participation through structured local trade development.
ALTA South Africa
Supporting South African regional participation through provincial enterprise routes, local supplier development, and market-access pathways.
ALTA Africa
Connecting wider African regions and participating countries into enterprise education, opportunity visibility, and market participation.
Public Price Africa
Supporting continental business development, African enterprise networks, market conversations, and cross-border opportunity visibility.
Research & Dialogue
Hosting discussions and developing insight around consumer-market fairness, affordability, access, and practical economic redress.
Focus Areas
Buy Local, Sell Local
Encouraging communities, businesses, and consumers to support local suppliers, local services, local producers, and local market circulation.
Fair Access to Markets
Readdressing exclusion by helping entrepreneurs access trading spaces, supplier networks, public programs, digital markets, and commercial visibility.
Essential Goods Economy
Supporting dialogue around food, infant goods, transport, data, internet access, and essential services as part of everyday economic justice.
“Working together is the only way to go.”
— Public Price Leadership PrincipleOur Vision
A practical African consumer economy where local entrepreneurs are educated, connected, supported, and able to participate fairly in the markets that serve their own communities.