By Kefiloe Kajane
‘Matsomoli Mokhele is the co-owner of Khora Consumer Brands, a company that started in 2019 and specializes in producing children’s friendly food.
The recently introduced product of the company is Maatens popcorn that is coloured, sweet and flavoured.
A Bachelor of Science in Nutrition graduate, Mokhele was inspired to start the company as she was used to experimenting on edibles in class during the product development course.
In an interview with theReporter, Mokhele said that she and her team were keen to start producing children’s friendly food stuffs. But they realised that the production machines were expensive. She said then she decided to go for something simpler and less expensive that is when the maatens popcorns were produced.
“The maatens popcorns are the first product that we decided to produce while we wait to have a machine that can help us produce other products. We realised that popcorn is one of the products that children love and to eat. It is easy to make and does not require any expensive equipment.
“When we started making it, we thought it was going to be easy as we thought it is just frying corn, flavoring it and dyeing it. But we were in for a surprise because we realised that it was not as easy as we thought it was going to be. We started experimenting with it from August but we only started succeeding in September this year,” she said.
She wishes to extend the distribution of the product so as to be available to many customers. She is hungry for hitting a broad market where the company is eyeing high competition.
Mokhele is hopeful that one day the product would be available in several shelves in stores.
“People have been really complimenting us on our product. They really love it especially children. The only challenge is that we are currently unable to produce it in large quantities. It is a challenge because many people would really like to see it on different shelves. Packaging is one of the major setbacks as we have to source materials outside the country. That costs a lot,” Mokhele said.
She advised other young people who would like to start a business especially that produces edibles that they should look for products that people need.
She said starting is easy when your product is filling a certain gap in product demand.
She concluded by urging upcoming companies to bring heads together to cooperate as part of building business skills.
Maatens popcorn can be found on +266 566 277 09
