By Kefiloe Kajane
More and more young Basotho are starting to venture into food production, with farming now becoming an occupation of choice and an alternative source of income.
The same goes for Thabo ‘TJ’ Tṧoeute and his wife ‘Maneo Tṧoeute of Ha Thetsane in Maseru, who operate a small dried fruits business called Masimong Farms.
Speaking to theReporter this week, Tṧoeute said when they started the business in August 2019 as a side hustle to make extra cash, they had no idea I would end up becoming their full time job.
Masimong Farms specializes in drying fruits like bananas, apples, pears, guava, peaches and many others to sell. They use a drying machine for this.
“When we started this business, we were selling to our friends and families and we did not even have proper packaging. On one occasion, we went to a family wedding and took some of our dried fruit packets just to test the waters and, lo and behold, they sold out instantly; everyone loved them.
“At the beginning we would sell about 300 packets a month, but we have now gone up to selling at least 1 300 per month,” he said.
He attributed the growth to the constant feedback from clients, adding they make it a point to heed the response as it helps improve the quality of what they have to offer.
Advertising on social media has also proved to be helpful, as this is where they get a huge chunk of clients.
“When you use social media positively, believe me it will also be good to you. Our business is now booming and that is also through the help of the lockdown because during that time we had a lot of time to do some introspection and review of our operations.
“We were able to correct the mistakes that we made and improve where we needed to improve, so that really helped. Basotho have been really supportive of our business in all districts,” Tṧoeute said.
He further revealed plans to own his own farm in the future, and farm and produce their own fruits instead of purchasing them like they do now. He said this will also enable them to expand into vegetable production as well.
Masimong Farms products are available at locally owned supermarket Enrich Stores. People can also buy them in bulk for purposes of reselling, too.
