The ‘Platteland’ home industry
You have in your hands a product of a home industry that relocated to a sleepy village called Koringberg at the end of 2018.
Koringberg has occasionally featured in Platteland since 2013, but we have never told the full story of this town, despite many requests from our readers. Now the time has come: In October Koringberg celebrates its 100th anniversary. It is more cosmopolitan than before, sure, but it remains a modest, simple and unassuming spot, the kind of place your grandmother would call “a onehorse town”. The very opposite to the semi-glamorous of ce Platteland used to have in Cape Town’s city centre.
In this rural home industry, we produce a magazine – mostly on the computer in the study, but often on the verandah, in the garden, at the dining table, or on the road. The other “home bakers” – including Willem van der Berg in Bloemfontein, Mia Louw in Johannesburg and Nelspruit, as well as our designer and our English copy editor in Cape Town – send their creations via email and Dropbox… We’re lucky if we get to see the other members of the home industry in person once a year.
It reminds me of what Sandra Kritzinger, former chairperson of the famous Tuiskoop home industry in Ermelo, said to Platteland back in 2017: “Home industries can’t afford to be nostalgic about the ‘golden years’ before delis and supermarkets appeared in the countryside – your business will never survive or progress. Many home industries struggle because almost every supermarket nowadays has a bakery counter where everything is made in bulk with preservative- lled premixes. Competition is getting tougher as consumers face nancial pressure, and with rising food and electricity prices, the biggest challenge for a home baker is to keep the prices competitive without compromising quality.”
In this fortieth edition of Platteland, we express our gratitude to Koringberg and its residents for their contributions and support – see everyone who has graced our covers over the past 10 years on page 69 for starters.
Also, we deeply appreciate your support in these trying times – thank you!