The Potato Distribution Start-Up

My name is Saide Mahlangu, I am a 24-year-old young, entrepreneurial male living in a country (South Africa) and time where opportunity is rife however it is very selective and normally based on demographics.. I am in the process of designing a personal blog that focuses on my habitual self-loathing,disruptive, cynical, curious,pessimistic,imaginative and childish personality and dysfunctional relationships. It also takes a deep look into my disagreeable, yet well founded efforts at earning himself a living. In the Blog itself, I will be using a synonym "Eddie Grae" and the blogs name is "Guy Broke," relevant to my current financial standing.

For years i have had a passion for business, since i was a young boy. Selling thrift clothes to fellow school and neighborhood mates, marshmallows, hosting small scale events at school and so on. I had a short stint where i tried starting a school newspaper, but unfortunately with no success due to a lack of support from teachers, SGB and peers.

I worked hard enough to have my first restaurant at 23, and i lost it all due to inefficiency of funds and the difficulty in sourcing them, more especially so as it is known in corporate circles, it is there to help black people get ahead. Well, ostensibly so anyway. The problem is that it is unfair in its application. As I have experienced, it creates a situation where only a very few able and unskilled black people get ahead, some of them profiting massively from their in-demand skill set, or appearance, or their gift-of-the-gab. I believe that BBBEE is just a very comfortable excuse for the rich to enrich themselves even further, and to keep the ignorant voter base exactly where they are. Should government ever become more accountable for their actions, they need to agree to more proper levels of salary for themselves, begin massive education drives, kill corruption, pay their service-oriented employees more, get rid of the strike mentality and can BBBEE.

At 23 I opened my first ever restaurant and it is still running however due to unavailable yet promised funding from certain organisations, it is struggling to stay afloat. It is hear-trenching, however i and my business partners do not let it demotivate us as we believe in to constantly keep moving forward. Which brings me to the current agenda.

My business partner and I have learnt, through our restaurant and other ventures that potatoes are in high demand in Johannesburg and the Western Cape. For instance, the Township Kota industry is worth a whooping R10 Billion annually, not only that but there is also a fish and chips craze where companies buy on average 160 10kg pockets of potatoes per day, everyday. These kota fast food shops i mentioned, on average use about 80 - 180 10kg pockets per day.

I have studied the agricultural industry, more especially so the commercial potato production industry. To an extent where my partner and i left JHB and went to the Eastern Cape and Limpopo in source of potatoes. We ran out of funds doing so, however we are still on the road as is. We have learnt that the Eastern Cape is poised to be the Potato King of South Africa and Africa as a whole. With adequate funding, the vast arable yet unused land could be used as the power house. As producers expect to realise higher yields which will ultimately result in an increase in the volumes supplied on the national fresh produce market. An article dated 02 December 2016, projected that a 10 kilogram of potatoes is estimated to obtain between R25-R30 per bag, compared to price levels of above R45 per bag realised for most part of the 2016 season. The average producer price for a bag of potatoes are anticipated to only increase to R35 per bag at the end of November 2017, considering current conditions which might potentially influence production.

We have also realized that a lot of Co-Ops dont have sufficient funding and as such they are sitting with vast unused land, and we would like to change that.

This page is specifically designed to fund our research and generate enough capital so that we can start distributing potatoes, buying them directly from commercial farmers, distributing them in Johannesburg as well as Western Cape, then eventually the whole country.

The end goal is to distribute the wealth and create a self sustainable economy, while equally addressing the issue of famine, education and poor health care in The Eastern Cape as well as South Africa and Africa eventually, through a foundation we are to start as soon as soon as the Beginning of next year.

Please help us reach our goal.

Your assistance would be greatly appreciated.

NB:

We have manage to acquire 22 hectares of land, though not much, this land has the potential to give us 606 000 kgs of potatoes (60 600 10kg pockets) if properly used and irrigated. However, the entire process of farming is difficult and so is to excess funds. We have the skills, but lack equipment and further education.