Happy Makhalemele and her family almost lost everything they had during the Covid-19 lockdown, but her ingenuity to get her popular steamed bread into leading retailer Spar was a game changer. This did not only save her business but catapulted it into mainstream expansion.
The 43-year-old now distributes her product, Happy's Premium Dumplings, to three Spar stores and a Jay Jay butchery in Johannesburg.
Makhalemele, from Tweeling-Mafahlaneng in the Free State, and her husband Bushy have been in the catering business for 21 years, selling mogodu on Mondays as well as magwinya and mince at Alexandra Taxi Rank. She sold mince and magwinya on a part-time basis because she had a full-time job as a data capturer at the traffic department. Her husband distributed gas.
"I started my business in 1999 and I resigned from my job in 2003 to do this full-time," she said.
As we speak over the phone I can hear the clinking and clanking that tells me she is overseeing her restaurant, Moving Feast, which sells popular traditional food such as hard-body chicken, mogodu, steamed bread, pap and morogo in Eastbank, Alexandra.
Makhalemele, who is a mother of four, said at first she and her husband would knead dough for fat cakes and steamed bread without a proper recipe from their flat in Alexandra. "It was trial and error and it was hard but we were having fun," she said.
When they nailed their recipes people would flock to their stall at the rank, which allowed them to grow their business. They were also able to buy their first caravan. "We even had to move out of our house in Eastbank and transform it into a workshop," she said.
Makhalemele said she has nine permanent employees who help her keep the ship running. Her son Theo is also following in her footsteps after studying to become a chef.
"When we started we were selling magwinya and mince for R1. Getting stock was hard because of no money...now my biggest challenge was the lockdown," she said.
"March is when our business picks up every year. We never do very well in January and February but then the president said on the 26th [of March] we will have a lockdown."
It was sink or swim with the banks wanting to take their property and cars but her deal with Spar ended up saving them as well as the lowering of lockdown levels which allowed her customers to order food on Uber eats. The entrepreneur said she wants to have a factory in close proximity to Alexandra so she can create jobs.
Makhalemele is also planning on going back to school to study food science to make sure she understands every aspect of the food business. She never finished her BCom degree as a young woman.
"I also want to take my product to other retailers like Woolworths and Checkers as well as my mogodu which can be frozen. I feel like my dumpling should be a household essential like your favourite bread."
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