Do you love food? Who am I kidding, everybody does. The main question is have you ever thought about opening a restaurant or starting a café or maybe a catering business? I think a lot of you must have. But have you seen girls owning a restaurant? We can see that most of the restaurants or cafés or catering businesses are owned by men. Even all the chefs in the restaurant are men. It is kind of a male-dominated business where you see mostly no women.
But a family from Africa has proved this wrong. Three strong women run a food business all by themselves without any men and are successful in their journey. They have inspired a lot of other women to work as per their needs and wants without any fear.
It all began when Jane started this journey with her mom, Didee in 2013 in their family kitchen in Umhlanga Rocks, Africa. They both started cooking homestyle meals for their cousins and family who were too busy to cook due to work or studies. They saw the need for homestyle frozen food and decided to take a risk. We all know how it is difficult to cook if you are working or studying. Jane saw this opportunity to provide good quality food to people and even build something for themselves.
In the beginning, they had a limited customer base but as time passed Didee learned to use GPS and they grew to 45 customers. They filled their garage with freezers for their business. After this, they decided to move to a small industrial space in Durban North. After this their business flourished, they moved to a 200sqm space and they started producing 500 meals a day. In 2016, Jane’s sister Amy, returned from Australia and became a full-time business partner, and started looking after the logistics, administration, and sales of the company. They have the same kitchen in Durban but now they have a 500sqm area with 30 team members, producing 1000 meals a day all by hand. This female-strong business that they built with love and passion is ‘We Are Food’.
You might think what’s so special about them that makes them inspiring? There are many reasons that ‘We Are Food’ inspires us and teaches us to do something good:
This business is run by just three females and they have broken the patriarchy of the food business being male-dominated.
Their motive is to reduce consumption of wastage and power and search for more sustainable practices. They also want to increase nutritional offerings.
They want to support small and local suppliers and businesses, and uplift those who are in need within the community.
These few things make them different from others. They have set their business on basic ‘3 P’ principles- People, Planet, Profit. Not just this they have supplied over 5000 meals to people who were in need without any expectations, just for help.
The ‘We Are Food’ team provides freshly frozen home-style meals produced by hands with cleanliness and love. They have a freezing process through which they preserve the natural quality, flavor, and longevity of food. They don’t have any chemical or artificial preservatives. They have proper nutritional information for most of their dishes. ‘We Are Food’ promotes a flexitarian lifestyle that encourages plant-based eating but still allows animal products. They also provide food with a range of low carbs, less salt, and less sugar. All of their vegetables, fruits, and meat are locally sourced supporting small suppliers. They have developed many different kinds of food options with a variety of meal sizes, main courses, special diets, offers, and gift options. They provide delivery options to limited areas around KZN, Greater Joburg, and Pretoria in Gauteng, Greater Cape Town, and the Winelands in Western Cape.
Jane, Didee, and Amy are continuously working to increase their business and continue their good work towards the community. They are doing whatever they can on their part. Being a food supplier, it is difficult to sell a particular type of food as well as include sustainability. However, they are trying their best to be good to people as well as nature which makes us be proud of them more.
Edited by Mallika Malvia