The saying “when one door closes, another opens” proved true for Samuel Gumbie, an agripreneur operating out of Gauteng. The founder of Yummie Brands suffered a devastating blow when he was laid off from his job in 2021, but soon realised that he could turn his misfortune into an opportunity. He took his sauce-making side-hustle full-time and has not looked back since.
Manufactured in Midrand in Gauteng, Yummie Brands is a line of chilli sauces that vary in flavour from “I Like It Very Mild” to “I Like It Very Hot”. Gumbie describes the business as an “agroprocessing start-up” and says they transfer fresh produce into healthy and flavourful condiments.
“We’re positioning ourselves as a [health-concious] brand, and we are [also] all about sustainability. We are trying to empower small-scale, black farmers, who we source our produce from here in Johannesburg.”
An accountant by trade, Gumbie started making chilli sauces as a hobby. He explains that his sauces became quite popular among his colleagues, so he turned it into a side-hustle.
“I started this business in 2019 when I would make it on weekends, structuring the business around my work schedule.”
In 2021, Gumbie was laid off, prompting his decision to change his business into a full-time venture.
“It feels like destiny. I wasn’t planning on doing this, but things just started happening and I just found myself in a situation where I said, ‘I might as well work on this full-time’.”
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The challenges of a small business
Gumbie says that, in the last year and a half, he has been unable to draw a salary from the business. This is because, like many other small business owners, he is not able to secure the finance to grow his business.
“When you’re trying to scale or trying to grow the business, a lack of resources makes it very difficult to manoeuvre or to navigate that growth phase.”
Of course, having enough capital to access the market is crucial. He explains that to ensure this access, the business obtained an agreement with a distributor who can open up the markets for them.
“We have an agreement with a distributor who has access to over 200 retail outlets in South Africa. She loves the product. However, to get into those markets, you need [capacity and] we have capacity constraints. If the retailer says, ‘we want 50,000 units’, [we can’t provide this] yet because we don’t have the capacity to produce those 50,000 units. So, our challenge is mainly financial because, from a strategy point of view, I think our strategy on paper is great. It’s just that the execution requires capital.”
Still, the business has made significant progress in the last few months, says Gumbie. The brand is currently going through a due diligence process with some potential investors. He has also started selling the product in Zimbabwe, though the rollout is still in the experimental period.
“We dropped some samples of the product in the country during one of my visits, and a few stores liked our sauce, so they gave us an opportunity to list our product. But these are very small, very niche kinds of stores. Still, we are now going into Zimbabwe officially. We are actually speaking to some distributors in the country, and we hope to have our products in Zimbabwe officially by the beginning of next year.”
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Some advice
For Gumbie, entrepreneurship is something he has always taken to naturally. He says he started his first business when he was around 15 years old, and now, after going full-time with Yummie Brands, he cannot see himself going back to work in corporate spaces.
“I’m doing what I love. I’m passionate about entrepreneurship, and I’ve been an entrepreneur all my life so I cannot see myself doing anything else anymore. That is what is keeping me going. I’m doing what I love despite the fact that it’s been hard.”
Gumbie has only one piece of advice for aspiring agripreneurs; just start. “The most important thing is just to start. We’re so worried about whether or not our ventures will work, that we get too afraid to even start. So, the most important thing is starting and figuring things out as you go along.”
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