A healthy slice of nature on the move
CRAFTFEST, brought to you by the Independent on Saturday and Shongweni Farmers and Craft Market, this year offers a taste of the true nature of craft.
Entrance includes one of our designer glasses and a bag of Go Smart Fruit’s fruit snacks that contain no added sugar and are preservative free.
The Go Smart fruit range is the brainchild of Pietermaritzburg entrepreneur Elmien de Villiers, who describes herself as a farm girl, having grown up in Bethlehem in the Free State. And fruit is in her veins. Her great grandfather developed the acclaimed kruideniers (grocer’s) pear on his farm outside Rotterdam, which today is part of Rotterdam harbour.
She trained to be a teacher and worked in Pietermaritzburg but when in 1997 the education department offered severance packages, “I took it and jumped off the cliff,” she said.
She formed her own company Mamusa Marketing, after her Sotho nickname meaning the Big One, and started exporting dried fruits, especially dried mangos, initially to Switzerland.
She has been exporting throughout Europe and the East since.
Initially the dried fruits contained preservatives, but De Villiers created a preservative free method of drying whole fruit. In 2012 she started exporting preservative-free apples and pears.
“We launched our Go name in 2014 for people on the go – sportsmen, business women, even moms who need a snack in the car after the school run. It truly is nature on the move,” she said.
She is joined in the enterprise by long time friend, Loretta Moolman , a social worker who four years ago took early retirement to join the venture.
Last year the couple introduced their Go Smart Fruit range which takes in mango, papaya, pineapple, banana, orange and grapefruit.
“This is our passion unpreserved to bring you real fruit and real flavours,” says De Villiers.
The fruit can be eaten as a snack or rehydrated with water or even used to infuse in gin, or to garnish a cocktail.
Try the Go Smart fruit packs at CraftFest on March 21 at the Shongweni Farmers and Craft Market from 10am to 4pm. Tickets R120 from Quicket.