Bulawayo youth sets up thriving healthy foods company

Prosper Ndlovu, Business Editor
THE growing consumer demand for healthy and nutritious food has inspired a Bulawayo-born youth entrepreneur, Mpumelelo Ndiweni, to establish a thriving nutritional products business called Ezulu Foods.

The company could be best described as a “nutraceutical” company, because of its business model that is anchored on processing and retailing nutritional and medicinal foods.

It retails its flagship cereal and healthy oil products under the “Vital Breakfast” brand, which is produced from Goodview Farm in Ntabazinduna, uMguza District in Matabeleland North province.

Following its establishment in September 2019 and subsequently launching its “Vital Breakfast” in June 2020 in Bulawayo, EZulu Foods has grown to become a household name in Zimbabwe and beyond.

The company now supplies its range of cereal products such as instant porridge, cook porridge and garlic oil to more than 100 supermarkets in Southern Africa and is aiming at further growing its market share.

“We have invested +-U$500 000 into the business so far and now employ 32 workers. Our niche in the market is provision of affordable healthy food to consumers,” said Ndiweni in an interview with Business Chronicle from his South African base.

“Our vision is to spread our brand into Africa as the nutraceutical company. Already we have presence in South Africa, Zambia and are moving into Nigeria and DRC.”

Having been a health reformer for more than a decade, 37-year-old Ndiweni says he decided to share the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. Thus, in 2017 he established EZulu Ministries to demonstrate, teach and guide on the right habits of living.

While sharing this knowledge and lifestyle, the youthful businessman says he identified a shortage of healthy food in shops and this inspired him to want to set a business that provides quality health foods. In 2019 the idea of establishing a healthy food company, EZulu Foods, was thus born, he recalled.

A founder of Colmin Group and chief executive officer of EZulu Foods, Ndiweni says he has been in business from a tender age, having been involved in numerous entrepreneurial attempts.

“I have facilitated the development and funding of more than 100 small businesses for the South African Department of Trade and Industry and turned around some under productivity South Africa,” he said.

As part of scaling up, the company seeks to produce 100T of product per month by 2023 and has solicited 1 000Ha along the Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project (MZWP) green belt from the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development to establish its vertical model for local and export processing.

“This is a build-up to the business envisaging a listing on the VFEX. We continue to make strategic inroads in markets and are becoming the health cereal of choice to many customers throughout the region. Our ingredients are all historically native to our region, thus we are genetically aligned with the population of Sub-Saharan Africa.”

Ndiweni said Vital Breakfast was launched out of care and concern for Sub Saharan Africa populations that are under a scourge of non-communicable diseases due to consumption of “unhealthy” foods such as sugary, refined “unhealthy” cereals.

“We then decided to introduce an alternative that was native, healthy and affordable hence Vital Breakfast,” he said.
Ndiweni has expressed optimism that once they obtain the desired 1 000Ha concession along the Zambezi greenbelt from the Government, this will enable the company to increase production volumes and export its products to the wider regional and international market.

“EZulu foods has drawn inspiration from Gashora, a Rwandan company, which recently secured 2 000Ha in Zimbabwe to grow birds’ eye chillies for export,” he said.

“On the 1 000Ha, EZulu Foods intends to grow its inputs under irrigation, process its products and build a solar power station to power the operations with the excess power being fed into the grid.”

Ndiweni studied development finance from the University of Stellenbosch Business School at Masters level, and holds an undergraduate Degree in Textile Technology from the National University of Science and Technology.

He is also a holder of certificates in Business Viability Assessment and Private Equity from Business Skills South Africa and Gordon Institute of Business Studies respectively.