By Kefiloe Kajane
Alicia Shale is the brains behind the social media sensation food preserving business MmaPhepo which helps people with recipes on how to preserve fruits, vegetables and meat.
MmaPhepo works hand in glove with Farmrite, a farming company owned by Shale’s husband, which produces vegetables, pork and chicken preserve food by canning or drying.
Shale says she realised that when the vegetables (produced by her husband) are not sold out, they got spoiled. This was her cue to put her long held passion to work.
Speaking to theReporter this week, Shale revealed that she actually studied home economics and is currently studying food and nutrition at the National University of Lesotho, to further augment her passion for nutrition and food preservation.
She indicated that she does many types of food preservation – from vegetables, fruits and meat. Now that she is studying nutrition, she knows the science behind the preserving of food as well as what can be poisonous and what is healthy.
“This season people produced a lot of vegetables and I thought it is a good idea for me to post about food preservation and teach people. I got overwhelming support from people out there, that is when I created a Facebook page specifically for it.
“From there what started as just an idea and a passion turned into a business; people started inboxing me, asking for recipes to preserve food. Some even ask me to bottle and then sell them,” she said.
The MmaPhepo page helps people with recipes on how to preserve any type of food. Shale revealed that she would like to one day be in a position to host workshops and teach people the importance of food preservation and healthy nutrition.
She said it is not only about preserving food, but also eating healthy. She indicated that the most important aspect of food preservation that people should realise is that it can actually save them a lot of money.
“We live in tough times, when you know how to preserve food, you are able to buy in large quantities so that you do not have to buy again soon afterwards. This saves money. My mission is just to share my passion with other people,” Shale concluded.
