By: Sizakele Nduli
After experiencing disappointment with the quality of their favorite childhood snack from prominent brands, two Soweto youngsters took matters into their own hands by developing their own brand of puff snacks called AmaShwamShwam. “Our name, AmaShwamShwam is a township classic. It resonates with most people of colour,” said Lesedi Tshabalala, 24, who developed the snack with Tsholofelo Mongwenyane, 22.
Tshabalala told Vutivi News that they first started making and selling atchaar in their community after opening their business, Lefelo Foods, in 2022. The next year, they welcomed Mbongeni Fakude, 26, who played an important role in establishing their microfactory. With Mbongeni’s assistance, they not only set up the micro-factory, but also launched their two-flavoured cheese and sweet chili puff snacks, which created temporary employment for five people. “The process of developing and making snacks was very difficult.
For us, it actually started out with YouTube videos before we started networking with employees of some snack companies who were willing to share their knowledge with us,” Tshabalala explained. Initially, the co-founders could only produce 800 snacks per week, but everything changed when they moved to a micro-factory in Kya Sands, where they increased their production capacity to 2500 units per day.
Now, the company also ships 30 pallets monthly to countries within the SADC region. Tshabalala told Vutivi News that one of the primary struggles they grappled with was crime, which compelled them to stop their shop-to-shop sales initiative. “We had an incident where our driver and sales guy were shot at while the guys were trying to rob them. Fortunately, a SAPS van was patrolling in the areas,” he added. The co-founders also had to deal with red-tape, which made getting into major supply chains as a micro-enterprise a nightmare. “… retail chains are very strict when it comes to food,” Tshabalala said.
He also revealed that they took the bold step of using their own funds to get their business off the ground after failing numerous times to acquire funding. They are now planning to establish distribution hubs across Gauteng and get their products on Takealot and other online stores. “We have a line up of different snacks and other food products we’d like to add to our line up of products,” he said.
Tshabalala encouraged reselling, as it gave early adopters of their products a chance to become part of their value chain. “We have a database of resellers we are planning to release to the public. The resellers help us get our products to consumers,” Tshabalala explained, adding that they were still building capacity in order to ultimately release the list.
