One of the main purposes of this blog is to introduce inspirational social entrepreneurs and innovative organizations to a wider audience outside of their home countries.
In Cape Town at the end of November last year, I met Nontwenhle Mchunu, a formidable, yet cautious young woman from a small town in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa. She is on a mission to create Africa’s first prestigous, world-class chocolate brand, using only ingredients from African soil that have been sustainably produced.
She is well on her way already: in 2008 she won the South African Businesswomen’s Association Regional Business Achiever Awards in the social entrepreneur category for her newly established company, Ezulwini Chocolat; she has trained at one of Europe’s top culinary institutes, Leatherhead International, and in Switzerland where she learned from the world’s leading fine-chocolate makers.
Her ambition is to build a successful chocolate business in the townships of South Africa to create jobs (where unemployment runs as high as 40%), expand access to vocational education for many youth through her business, and use only cocoa and ingredients from sustainable African sources.
Mchunu, or “Chocolate Lady”, has a passion for both sustainable change and chocolate, and South African supermarket chains and hotels, like Pick-n-Pay and Protea Hotels, have already begun to retail her products. With her lofty expectations, entrepreneurial drive, and plans to become South Africa’s leading Chocolatier, I expect we will see her chocolate around the world in the not too distant future.
I met Mchunu at the Evian Group at IMD’s capacity building workshop in Cape Town that was focused on inclusive growth in Africa.
No comments:
Post a Comment