New-age pap makes its debut in Gauteng
Young entrepreneur propelled to greater heights
IN AN industry that boasts the likes of Tiger Brands, Pioneer Foods, RCL and Astral Foods, it is hard to imagine a young black entrepreneur dreaming of joining the league of these multibillion-rand firms.
Yet Wendell Peters aims to do just that. Standing inside his food-processing plant in Krugersdorp on the West Rand, a few kilometres from a Tiger Brands factory, Peters, 33, exudes confidence about going big on — guess what — producing pap with a long shelf life.
If RCL can manufacture Mageu and secure a decent market share, surely Qasa-Mia, the company that owns the food-processing plant, can do the same with pap? The secret of this type of pap is that it lasts longer than the home-made variety and can be refrigerated.
Before he founded Qasa-Mia, Peters ran NGO Thusanang Youth Development, which was funded by the Gauteng Department of Social Development to create jobs.
He received financial support from the Gauteng Enterprise Propeller (GEP) as part of an initiative to ramp up youth entrepreneurship in the manufacturing sector.
In 2014, he met an Italian businessman who was selling a new-look pap-making factory that had never been put to full use. Peters received an undertaking from the owner to sell it to him. But he had no money.
In 2015 the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) gave him R1.2-million to rent the plant for a few months. This helped him to demonstrate to the owner a firm commitment to source funding. He also invested his own money after selling some of his possessions.
Early last year the GEP, an entity under the Gauteng province’s Department of Economic Development, gave him a grant to buy the plant. The GEP was convinced of the plant’s potential and saw an opportunity to enlist Peters among the potential job creators on the West Rand.
Peters underwent training on the use of the machinery and the relevant intellectual properties. “The company that supplies the plant in Italy is the only one that holds intellectual property rights. In Africa we are the only ones who can produce pap in such a plant,” he says.
“In 2016 we set up the facility. We trained staff, conducted market research and attended expos organised by the Department of Trade and Industry.” He will join exhibitions in Indonesia, Nigeria and Mozambique to showcase the product.
He targets retail and bulk customers. For the factory to be profitable, it has to produce 400 tons a month. His biggest order so far is in the pipeline from the South African National Defence Force. It has inspected the plant, sampled the product and expressed satisfaction.
The Botswana Defence Force has also expressed interest, Peters says.
On the retail side, he has conducted successful trials with Spar outlets. “Within a short space of time, people had bought all of it,” he says. His major goal now is to roll out a marketing strategy.
The pap is manufactured and packaged in 500g packs under the brand EEZI-PAP, fully owned by Qasa-Mia, of which Peters is the founder. He is prepared to tailor the product for clients who may want to order in bulk. The plant can also make samp with a longer shelf life.
So far, the GEP has funded him with about R3-million, which has helped him to employ five staff members. Peters is thankful to this commitment from the Gauteng government for making his dream come true. Peters is enlisting in the DTI’s black industrialists programme, which would require him to get involved in the entire value chain — from farming maize, to milling, to the production of pap at his plant.
Peters is a beneficiary of the Gauteng government’s Integrated Youth Development Strategy 2015-2020, aimed at driving youth-specific interventions to ensure that young people are at the centre of a programme to transform, modernise and reindustrialise the Gauteng city region.
With the kind of solid backing he has so far received from the Gauteng government, including assistance to gain market entry, there is no reason for him to look back. Now it’s up to him to ensure that when the dominant meal in South Africa finally gets produced by modern machinery, he is the man at the helm.