Tag: 2010

Woman Wants African Farming to be Cool

Post author By David South Consulting
Post date 18/10/2022
1 Comment on Woman Wants African Farming to be Cool

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Can farming be cool? Especially on a continent where it has long been associated with hardship and poverty, can agriculture be attractive to a young generation looking for big opportunities? A young woman in Nigeria thinks so and is on a mission to show farming is a great way to get ahead in modern Africa. And she hopes more people attracted to farming will boost the continent’s food security and reduce costly imports.

Cynthia Mosunmola Umoru’s company, Honeysuckle PTL Ventures (http://www.tootoo.com/d-c3015227-Honeysuckles_Ptl_Ventures/), is based in Lagos , the business capital of Nigeria. The West African country has become dependent on food imports, despite many attempts to modernise its agricultural sector.

The country’s heavy dependence on oil exports for its income has led to poor investment in its domestic economy. Over 80 percent of Nigeria’s university graduates struggle to find work. And it is these two problems – food security and high unemployment among the country’s young, educated and ambitious – that Umoru wants to change.

Leading by example, Umoru has set up a successful and modern agribusiness focusing on high-quality food products using modern packaging and fast delivery. She produces meat products, from seafood like shrimps and prawns to snails, beef, chicken, and birds. Her niche is to deliver the product however the customer wishes: fresh, frozen or processed. Her business has its own farms and ponds but also has developed a sophisticated network with other farmers, providing them with standard contracts and benefits. This extra capacity means she can meet the demand and handle large volume orders.

She is proudly self-taught. “I didn’t have a mentor in farming! Though I have other mentors,” Umoru told the Guardian Life Magazine. “My knowledge of agribusiness has been largely from personal education and research. The Internet has served greatly as my resource bank.”

Umoru was initially on the path to study medicine, but had that dream upset by riots in the late 1990s. She then moved on to study zoology at Lagos State University. In her final year, she became interested in agribusiness. Her company was officially registered in 2004, but she had already begun at university providing meat products to fast-food outlets in Lagos.

“It took five years to gain relevance,” she said. “My involvement in the agribusiness sector is really impacting people, particularly young people like me, who I always hear say ‘If you are involved with farming then it is probably not as bad as it seems’. Farming, before now in Nigeria, was termed business of low-lives and with the barrier to entry being so high for young people to actively participate.”

“I have successfully, in my little way, impressed on my generation that farming could be glamorous and cool enough for us to trade places with the business executive in the large conglomerate and also the bank’s middle management cadre, which is the initial attraction for most young graduate(s) in Nigeria.”

She is not shy talking about how rough it was in the beginning: “As a young entrepreneur, in my very early days, I lost a lot of the seed capital I got from financial mentors to poor and bad business decisions I took because there was no one to talk to.”

Overall in sub-Saharan Africa, the long-term prospects for agriculture are good. The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) found in a 2009 paper that “the sub-Saharan agricultural sector — 80 percent of which consists of smallholder farmers — grew more than 3.5 percent in 2008, well above the 2 percent rate of population growth.”

Sub-Saharan Africa’s population is predicted to grow from 770 million in 2005 to 1.5 to 2 billion in 2050 (FAO). Despite rapid migration from the countryside to cities and the growth in urban population, the absolute number of rural people is also likely to continue to increase.

Agriculture is the motor for rural development, poverty and hunger reduction in sub-Saharan Africa. The FAO paper said that agricultural growth in sub-Saharan Africa is likely to be led by domestic and intra-African demand for food commodities due to urbanization and the growing population.

African farming has been able to benefit from rising global food prices and demand. The policy environment has also become more favourable, according to the FAO. The paper found “There is a particular need for programmes and policies to increase the capacity of smallholder farmers to enter dynamic sectors of national, regional and international markets.”

African farming can see serious productivity gains if it changes and it takes on new techniques. At the moment only 3 percent of the region’s food crops are produced using irrigation, compared to more than 20 percent globally.

The irony is that Nigeria has already hatched one of the world’s most successful food companies, Olam (www.olamonline.com). A global food supply company in ‘agri-products’ that got its start in Nigeria, it shows Umoru is on to something – a Southern brand can grow and go global, and overcome the difficulties of cross-border trade in Africa.

Olam currently supplies well-known global food brands including Cadbury (chocolate), Nestle, Lavazza (coffee), Mars (chocolate), Tchibo and Planters (peanuts).

With some 218 million people in Africa — around 30 percent of the total population — estimated to be suffering from chronic hunger and malnutrition, a thriving local food sector would bring many gains.

Turning to more sophisticated business models offers solutions to chronic problems. With 80 percent of Africa’s farms less than two hectares in size – and there are 33 million of them – cereal yields have grown little and are still around 1.2 tonnes per hectare in the region, compared to an average of some 3 tonnes per hectare in the developing world as a whole. Fertilizer consumption was only 13 kg per hectare in sub-Saharan Africa in 2002, compared to 73 kg in the Middle East and North Africa and 190 kg in East Asia and the Pacific. The FAO has estimated that the potential additional land area available for cultivation in sub-Saharan Africa amounts to more than 700 million hectares – a boon to the continent’s and the world’s food needs in coming years if handled well.

And the demand is there: Between 2001 and 2007, annual increases in the global consumption of agricultural commodities were larger than during the 1980s and 1990s. The quantity of agri-products harvested in the world is 5.2 billion metric tonnes a year.

“I have been able to reach out to so many people across the nation, preaching the agribusiness development and adoption gospel,” said Umoru. “I have also worked closely with other youth agencies to empower many more young people to aspire in Nigeria.”

One such agency is the Harambe Nigeria Endeavour. Harambe Nigeria (http://www.hendeavor.org/content/bgroups/nigeria.php) is a programme designed to stimulate growth in the agricultural sector and open up opportunities for youth to become leaders and entrepreneurs in this area. And this means future young entrepreneurs going into the agricultural sector will not feel as alone as Umoru once did.

As Obinna Ukwuani, creative director of Harambe Nigeria says: “We wish to rectify the tarnished image of agriculture in Nigeria, making it a viable investment for Nigerian youth from all walks of life.”

Published: May 2010

Resources

1) World Vegetable Center: The World Vegetable Center is the world’s leading international non-profit research and development institute committed to alleviating poverty and malnutrition in developing countries through vegetable research and development. Website: http://www.avrdc.org

2) Marketing African Leafy Vegetables: Challenges and Opportunities in the Kenyan Context by Kennedy M. Shiundu and Ruth. K. Oniang. Website: http://www.ajfand.net/Issue15/PDFs/8%20Shiundu-IPGR2_8.pdf

3) 2050: Africa’s Food Challenge: Prospects good, resources abundant, policy must improve: A discussion paper from the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). Website: http://www.fao.org/wsfs/forum2050/wsfs-background-documents/issues-briefs/en/

4) African Alliance for Capital Expansion: A management consultancy focused on private sector development and agribusiness in West Africa. Website: http://www.africanace.com/v3

5) Branding Strategy Insider: This blog provides advice and case studies on how to build trust for your brand. Website: www.brandingstrategyinsider.com

6) Growing Inclusive Markets, a web portal from UNDP packed with case studies, heat maps and strategies on how to use markets to help the poor. Website: www.growinginclusivemarkets.org

7) Starting a SME (small, medium enterprise): This website is packed with advice and tips for starting a small business and how to grow it with limited resources. Website: http://www.smallbusiness.co.uk

8) World Business Fair: The World Business Fair is an international trade platform for global entrepreneurs and professionals. Website: http://www.worldbusinessfair.com

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.

This work is licensed under a
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ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

© David South Consulting 2023

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West African Chocolate Success Story

Post author By David South Consulting
Post date 17/10/2022
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By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

A Ghanaian chocolate company has become a big success in the United Kingdom and shown how it is possible to develop and market a high-quality product grown in West Africa. While the chocolate bars are manufactured in the Netherlands, the cooperative that owns the company initiated the push into producing a mass-market chocolate brand – and shares in the profits.

The Divine chocolate brand is available in shops and supermarkets across Britain and is the product of the Kuapa Kokoo (http://www.kuapakokoo.com/) cocoa farmers cooperative. The Divine brand was launched in the U.K. in 1998 as the first Fairtrade (http://www.fairtrade.org.uk) chocolate bar aimed at the mass market. Previously, most Fairtrade chocolate was made for high-end customers.

Apart from the chocolate bars, the co-op also sells its cocoa butter to The Body Shop (http://www.thebodyshop.co.uk/_en/_gb/index.aspx), a chain of natural beauty retailers.

In 1997, at the co-op’s annual general meeting, members decided to create a mass-market chocolate bar of their own. Ambitiously, they did not want to just be a small, niche-market chocolate bar. They wanted to take on the big brands. They set up The Day Chocolate Company in 1998 and received support from a collection of international charities, aid agencies and businesses.

The Chocolate Company is structured to have two members of the co-op on its board of directors, with one out of four yearly board meetings held in Ghana. As shareholders, the farmers also receive a share of the profits of chocolate sales. Britain’s chocolate market is worth £4 billion a year (US $6 billion) and the country has hundreds of chocolate brands, making competition for customers fierce. The Divine range of chocolate has been designed to match U.K. market tastes.

Ghana has an excellent reputation for the quality of its cocoa beans and has been growing cocoa since it was first brought to the country from Equatorial Guinea in 1878 by Tetteh Quarshie (http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/people/pop-up.php?ID=128).

Kuapa Kokoo’s success story has its origins in responding to the structural adjustment programmes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_adjustment) which started liberalizing Ghana’s cocoa market in 1993.

The lock the government had on selling cocoa to the Cocoa Marketing Company had been lifted. Now the opportunity was there for others to sell to the Marketing Company and some farmers decided to form a cooperative, Kuapa Kokoo – “the best of the best”. They wanted to get a better price for the cocoa and to improve working conditions and lives of the pickers.

The cooperative does all the processing of the cocoa and delivers it to market. One of the great advantages for the farmers is the honest weighing of the beans – something previous buying agents would cheat doing. By creating a more efficient and fair process, greater savings are made on the price paid for the beans and this is passed on to the co-op’s members.

The farmers are also trained to do tasks like weighing and bagging the cocoa, removing the need for outside help. Every year the farmers receive cash bonuses based on the co-op’s profits and any efficiencies made.

With this success, Kuapa Kokoo grew and now has more than 40,000 members spread over 1,300 villages.

The co-op offers various services to the farmers including a credit union to help with finances. There are also 33 Research and Development Officers employed by the co-op to oversee training and election.

The number of women farmers has grown over the years, from 13 percent to 30 percent.

Extra income-generating skills are encouraged for the women farmers as well. One project is to make soap from the potash produced from burnt cocoa husks. Women have also been given machines to crack palm kernels for cooking oil.

Comfort Kumeah, a 62-year-old co-op farmer, lives in the village of Mim in the Ashanti region. A former teacher for 39 years, she inherited 20 acres of land from her husband’s family.

“Each farmer has a passbook to record weight and payment. In the whole of Ghana, only Kuapa Kokoo … is certified Fairtrade,” she told the Sunday Times.

“I was voted chair of the farmers’ trust and national secretary for the union; once a year I attend a conference to vote on how the Fairtrade premium is spent. Last year we bought a palm-nut crusher and we sell the red oil on the market.”

“Before, I was always cheated. Purchasing clerks would come and weigh the beans and you never knew if their scales were correct, as no one checked them. Some embezzled the money instead of paying it to the farmers.”

“Owning this company has given cocoa farmers a voice for the first time.”

Kuapa Kokoo sells around 1,000 tonnes of cocoa every year to the European Fairtrade market (http://www.etfam.com/index2.php). This has many advantages for sellers if they meet certain conditions. These conditions include health and safety requirements and democratic decision making. If they are met, the producers receive a guaranteed price for their goods and long-term trading contracts. This means a stable price despite market fluctuations. With a stable price, it is easier to plan and save money.

Ghanaian cocoa has a good international reputation and trades at a higher price because of this. Cocoa once made up 66 percent of Ghana’s foreign exchange, but is now down to 35-40 percent as the economy has diversified into areas like information technology.

Cocoa is usually grown on small family farms in Ghana. Farmers also grow crops like plantain to provide food for the family. Around 1.6 million people are involved in growing cocoa and its business in Ghana. Cocoa trees grow to 15 metres in height and take three to four years to start producing a crop. An entire year’s worth of a tree’s crop can make three large chocolate bars.

A tree can produce two crops a year. Each cocoa pod produces around 40 seeds.

“A cocoa farmer’s life is hard,” admits Comfort. “In the lean season, we have no income. Also, cocoa is controlled by climate. Drought followed by too much rain causes fungus and rot, and then every farmer is poor.”

“I have saved money for my children’s education but my own needs are few: clothes, soap and toothpaste. Generally, you know, women are strong. Last year more women than men were voted onto the Kuapa Kokoo national executive and now hold some of the most senior positions.”

Learn more about cocoa trading and Africa’s role here (content provided by commodity.com): Cocoa’s Future as Commodity: What If Africa Can’t Keep Up the Supply? – Where’s Cocoa From and How Much Does It Contribute to the World’s Economy?

Cocoa has many health benefits. From the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology: The neuroprotective effects of cocoa flavanol and its influence on cognitive performance

“In summary, the flavonoids contained in cocoa and chocolate appear able to improve various types of cognitive and visual tasks, possibly as the result of more efficient perfusion of blood to different neural tissues, clearly both forebrain and more posterior cortex and possibly also influence retinal blood flow and visual function.”

Published: April 2010

Resources

1) Divine’s online shop. Website: www.divinechocolateshop.com

2) An online shop with various Fairtrade chocolate brands for sale. Website: http://www.simplyfair.co.uk/acatalog/Chocolate.html?icid=J158-11634392-071H&gclid=CMOlycDN8KACFUkrDgodjXDsEg

3) How to make chocolate bars from the bean to bar. Website: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Chocolate

4) Home Chocolate Factory: A website selling the moulds and other accessories for making chocolate products in small factories or at home. Website: http://www.homechocolatefactory.com/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/17/connoisseur-chocolate-from-the-south-gets-a-higher-price/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/01/indonesian-food-company-helps-itself-by-making-farmers-more-efficient/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/05/southern-innovator-issue-3/

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

© David South Consulting 2023

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Rwandan Coffee Brand Boost

Post author By David South Consulting
Post date 14/10/2022
No Comments on Rwandan Coffee Brand Boost

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

A successful Rwandan company is using coffee shops to promote the nation’s high-quality coffee brands at home and abroad. Started by two Rwandan entrepreneurs three years ago, Bourbon Coffee (http://www.bourboncoffeeusa.com) now has three shops in the country’s capital, Kigali, and a savvily positioned shop in Washington DC.

While Rwandan coffee has built a good international reputation, the country’s more than 500,000 coffee farmers (mostly small-scale) previously depended on the product’s reputation alone. But Bourbon Coffee joins several other initiatives changing this situation and starting to significantly raise the profile of Rwandan coffee and build the Rwanda brand.

The East African nation experienced the horrific genocide of almost 1 million people in 1994. Ever since, the country has been on a journey to reconcile with the damage done during this time and move on to a more prosperous future for all its citizens. A key part of the country’s future success will be its economic prosperity. And historically, coffee has played a critical role in Rwanda’s economy.

The Bourbon Coffee chain of shops (taking its name from the high quality Bourbon coffee varietal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coffee_varieties) which accounts for the majority of Rwandan coffee), started with its first shop in Kigali in 2007. Started by Emmanuel Murekezi and Arthur Karuletwa, two Rwandans living in the United States, it is modelled on the popular American brand Starbucks (http://www.starbucks.com). The entrepreneurs admired the coffee culture experience found at Starbucks. Just as Starbucks heavily markets its complete quality control over the coffee experience, their philosophy is to produce great coffee from “crop to cup.”

“There are over 500,000 farmers that own 100 to 200 trees in the back of their yards, so the only way they can come up with a product is to come together in a cooperative sense,” Karuletwa told the Washington Post. It is a learning experience for the Rwandan coffee farmers: they learn to work together, trust each other and be accountable to each other. “Neighbours that once killed each other and communities that once floated in the same bloodbath are now hand in hand producing one of the most amazing products.”

“If done right, it could be the platform to re-brand the country,” continued Karuletwa, a former chief executive and now a shareholder in the company. Coffee can “create awareness that there’s recovery, there’s trade, there’s investment opportunities, there’s tourism. There’s life after death.”

The importance of good design and a strong brand in the success of a business cannot be emphasised enough. That extra effort and thought can take a business from local success to regional and even global success. As consultants KPMG make clear, “For many businesses, the strength of their brands is a key driver of profitability and cash flow.” Yet the majority of small businesses fail to think about their brand values or how design will improve their product or service.

The shops have a very tasteful modern, African design and feel. African sculpture and furniture are surrounded by African artwork. The shop’s logo is an eye-catching orange and there is an overall recognizable brand identity for the entire Bourbon Coffee concept.

The founders see it as an opportunity to educate people about the health benefits of coffee culture and the joys of the lifestyle. They proudly serve only Rwandan coffee and promote the national brands they serve, including Akagera, Kivu Lake, Kizi Rift, Muhazi and Virunga.

Bourbon Coffee, in a clever move, opened the Washington branch in 2009 in a former Starbucks in a neighbourhood packed with aid organizations and NGOs, many of which work with Rwanda on projects.

Karuletwa says Bourbon Coffee’s ambitious vision “is to stand as a symbol of a new era in African economic development, one in which African nations rise to participate directly in the global marketplace.”

“Coffee is a very intimate, emotional product,” he said. “The preparation, the processes and the profiling of coffee is similar to wine.”

The Rwandan branches can be found at the Union Trade Centre (UTC) in Kigali’s city centre, the MTN centre in Nyarutarama and Kigali airport.

The business is funded by Rwandan investors Tristar (http://www.tri-starinvestments.com/index.html).

Another initiative is the Rwandan Farmers Brand (http://www.rwandanfarmers.com). It also hopes to raise the profile of Rwandan coffee and drive more of the profits made into the hands of farmers. It is a joint venture between the foundations of former U.S. President Clinton and philanthropist Sir Tom Hunter. They fund all the brand’s creation and operation in partnership with 8,700 farmers. They have started selling Rwanda Medium Roast Ground in the United Kingdom’s Sainsbury’s supermarkets. Sixteen percent of sales are clear profit and returned to the farmers via their own Trust Fund.

Karuletwa says he doesn’t want Rwandan coffee to be “a pity-driven mission”. It is all about the quality: “The value initiative here is because this coffee tastes great,” he says.

And Bourbon Coffee is looking further afield to grow the brand: “We hope to expand even further,” Murekezi told Monocle magazine. “Congo, Burundi, Tanzania, but also Europe. We think the concept can work there too.”

Published: August 2010

Resources

East African Fine Coffees Association: All the latest news on events and initiatives for East Africa’s coffee producers. Website: http://www.eafca.org/
Brandchannel: The world’s only online exchange about branding, packed with resources, debates and contacts to help businesses intelligently build their brand. Website: www.brandchannel.com
Small businesses looking to develop their brand can find plenty of free advice and resources here. Website: www.brandingstrategyinsider.com
The red dot logo stands for belonging to the best in design and business. The red dot is an internationally recognized quality label for excellent design that is aimed at all those who would like to improve their business activities with the help of design. Website: http://www.red-dot.de
Dutch Design in Development: The Dutch NGO works with producers to develop skills and adapt producers’ products to present and future demands in Europe. By following this approach, Southern producers can reduce the risk of making products nobody wants, or that lack originality in the marketplace and thus won’t sell. Website: http://www.ddid.nl/english/index.html

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/12/afro-coffee-blending-good-design-and-coffee/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/09/29/the-battle-for-indias-coffee-drinkers-in-buzzing-economy/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/10/03/civet-cat-coffee-brews-filipino-opportunity/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/01/08/haitian-coffee-becoming-a-hit-with-american-connoisseurs/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/05/southern-innovator-issue-2/

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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

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South African Wine Industry Uncorks Opportunities

Post author By David South Consulting
Post date 14/10/2022
No Comments on South African Wine Industry Uncorks Opportunities

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

Wine-making is one of South Africa’s oldest industries and plays a key part in the country’s economy. And now both wine making and production are being transformed and creating new economic opportunities. Once seen only as the preserve of the country’s white minority population, wine is slowly becoming a black thing too.

With exports growing from less than 50 million litres in 1994 to more than 400 million litres in 2008 – year-on-year growth of 17 percent – it is an industry that would be remiss if it didn’t share the profits of this success with the 80 percent of the country’s population who are black.

Since the end of the racist Apartheid regime (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_under_apartheid) in the mid-1990s, various government and industry initiatives have begun to reverse the iniquities of the country’s wine-making industry – and in turn, introduce more black South Africans to the pleasures of drinking this fine local product.

One product of this shift in sentiment is Zimbabwean Tariro Masayiti. A vintner for the prestigious South African winery Nederburg, he made history by being commissioned to create two of the three selected official wines for the World Cup of football held in South Africa this year. His Sauvignon Blanc and Dry Rose were drunk while fans watched the competition.

He says his introduction to the world of wine-making came about by chance.

“It was by accident really,” he said. “My brother used to work at a farm close to the Mukuyu wineries in Marondera (Zimbabwe). During my days at the university he recommended I do general work at the winery as I needed pocket money and something to help my family with.

“It was here that I got interested in winemaking. I used to see visitors from all over the world and some of them encouraged me to take up winemaking as a career. I applied and was accepted for a place at the University of Stellenbosch where I studied Viticulture and Oenology (winery),’ Masayiti told SW Radio Africa news.

“I was headhunted by Nederburg before I even finished my studies.”

Masayiti’s job involves testing the grapes that go into the winery’s product.

“I smell them and at the same time look for specific characters and flavours,” he said. “You improve on the job with training – you just need to taste a lot of wine. You need to love wine and having a science background is useful, so you understand the technical processes. But one thing that serves me well is I am dedicated and passionate about winemaking.”

Another symbol of these changes is Vernon Henn, general manager of Thandi wines (http://www.thandi.com). He worked his way up to this prestigious role in the white-dominated South African wine industry from being an office cleaner. Thandi is the first wine brand in the world entirely owned and run by a black collective.

Thandi (which means “nurturing love” in the Xhosa language) was started in 1995 and became the world’s first Fair Trade-certified wine in 2003. It sells cabernet sauvignon, merlot, pinot noir, sauvignon blanc, semillon, chardonnay and chenin.

“The whole of the industry has been changing slowly,” Henn told the Guardian newspaper. “We can now up the pace of transformation. There’s still a misconception that anything from black-owned manufacturing has to be inferior. We have always focused on quality and tried to redress misconceptions about black-owned labels.”

Other black-owned labels include M’hudi (http://www.mhudi.com); Ses’fikile (http://www.winedirectory.co.za/index.php/138/sesfikile), led by three former township schoolteachers; and Seven Sisters (http://www.sevensisters.co.za/wmenu.php) – cultivated by seven sisters.

“We are a tiny minority but we are here to stay,” said Vivian Kleynhans of the African Vintners Alliance, comprising eight companies led by black women. “So they will just have to accept us.”

Another success is the Indaba brand (http://twitter.com/IndabaWines) first launched in the US in 1996, just after South Africa became a democratic republic. “Indaba” is the Zulu word for “a meeting of the minds,” or a traditional gathering of tribal leaders for sharing ideas.

The brand was created as a celebration of the democratization process in South Africa, and from its inception the wines have conveyed the spirit of South Africa to the world’s wine drinkers.

The Indaba range of wines consists of the Indaba Sauvignon Blanc, Indaba Chenin Blanc, Indaba Chardonnay, Indaba Merlot and Indaba Shiraz.

There is also the 6^th annual Soweto Wine Festival (http://www.sowetowinefestival.co.za/About.htm) held in the Soweto township of Johannesburg. Soweto was home to the resistance against the Apartheid regime, and still has a very poor slum area in its midst. But it is also home to the new and rising black middle class. Many parts of Soweto could now pass for affluent suburbs in any wealthy country. Hatched as an idea in 2004, the wine festival is about “introducing South Africa’s quality wines to the remaining 80 percent of our population,” says Mnikelo Mangciphu, co-founder of the Soweto Wine Festival. “Wine is not for white South Africans only to enjoy. It should be a way of life for all South Africans.”

Mangciphu is also the owner and manager of the only wine shop in Soweto – Morara Wine & Spirit Emporium, which he launched after the first Soweto Wine Festival in 2005.

The idea behind the festival is to shift attitudes in South Africa about wine drinking. Soweto has been the home to many trends in the country, from politics to fashion to pop music. And so it seemed the right place to start shifting attitudes towards wine. The number of participants has grown from 3,000 people to 5,520. Five years after it began, the festival showcases wines from 103 wineries.

Mangciphu had spotted a shift in drinking habits away from just beer and so he opened his wine boutique in Soweto to cater to these new tastes. The shop is an elegant place with wooden shelves displaying the bottles of wine.

South Africa’s wine industry now employs around 257,000 people directly and indirectly, including farm labourers and those involved in packaging, retailing and wine tourism.

Wine tourism alone employs over 59 000 people. The Western Cape region, home to much of the wine industry, has seen its economy grow on the back of wine tourism.

By volume, South Africa ranks ninth in the world for wine production.

There is a scholarship fund also available to encourage young people to enter the South African wine industry as a career. Mzokhona Mvemve was one of the first awarded the Indaba Scholarship and became South Africa’s first black wine maker in 2001, working for Cape Classics.

Published: October 2010

Resources