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Maneli Pets’ Nhlanhla Dlamini did his thesis in youth employment - he’s put that into practice by creating 130 jobs, writes Eugene Goddard.
A wagging tail does not lie, at least not by the way dogs are taking to Nandi, the local line of protein-based treats that take their name from the isiZulu word for delicious – mnandi.
Launched by Maneli Pets, one of the Industrial Development Corporation’s (IDC’s) seed-funded success stories, company co-founder Nhlanhla Dlamini explained that the first letter “M” had to be dropped to make it easier for reception overseas, and what a reception it has been.
Although only launched a few months ago and hastily marketed during a trade show in Germany in May, Dlamini returned home buoyed by interest in the uniquely South African product and with a first order signed and sealed.
That initial shipment to Italy went ahead in June, joining the three to four containers of similar treats, branded as Roam and dedicated to the United States market, that leave Maneli’s loading bay every month.
Roam is actually where it all started for the young company and, although their US treats have only been shipped to those shores since October. “The market reception has been phenomenal”, Dlamini says.
“We export to Roam’s warehouse in New York from where our products are distributed to a myriad outlets across the US, numbering around 800 in total.”
Considering that it’s all happening from Sebenza in Ekurhuleni is almost too difficult to imagine.
But visiting Maneli’s state-of-the-art premises in this industrial area on the border of Edenvale and Kempton Park, one is quickly struck by the factory being a hive of activity second to none – clean, cutting-edge and on the cusp of even greater things.
“When we got going,” somewhere around 2016, “we were committed to creating 60 jobs over five years,” Dlamini says.
Initial war-room discussions quickly added some entrepreneurial peers to Dlamini’s shoestring outfit and by the time investor pledges started to take hold, the company’s staff complement slowly began growing.
When City Press profiled the company over a year ago, its multimillion-rand space-age freeze dryers from China barely hoisted into position, Maneli was still only employing about 30 people.
Today that figure stands at 130 people – an amazing feat in anyone’s books.
Thanks to the growing demand from the US and the success of Roam, Maneli’s root product that is now also exported to countries such as Germany, “we have created a 100 jobs in less than a year,” Dlamini beamed.
In broad terms some 70% of the venture’s staff consists of shop-floor workers and supervisors, while the remaining personnel is made up of factory and commercial managers.
Dlamini, who is only 34 years old, jokes that he is one of the oldest on the team as the average age of the company’s staff is 29.
Moreover, walk around Maneli Pets and it quickly becomes apparent that it couldn’t represent a truer reflection of desired demographics and gender equity.
“Nearly half of our staff is female and we are 94% black. That’s what I always wanted – to create employment where it’s most needed,” said the alumnus from Oxford University who completed his MPhil studies with a thesis about youth employment.
Interestingly, had Dlamini stopped studying there, Maneli might never have been.
“I really didn’t have to do my MBA,” he said with reference to relocating his ongoing academic sojourn abroad to the US.
“But I didn’t want to stop studying. I was still having fun as a student and didn’t want to start working.”
Finding something else to do with his brain, like pursuing a second master’s degree – namely in business administration – would become the impetus for an idea that steadily percolated into pet treats.
“Because I had been living away for six years, every time I would eat out I would lament how expensive it turned out to be, to eat the kind of food abroad that you find at some of our own restaurants.
“It’s really one of our best-kept secrets,” Dlamini believes.
“The quality of our food is something that we should be sharing with the rest of the world.”
He adds that from a young age he thought he would get involved in food, not necessarily pet food, mainly because one of his favourite inspirational brands, Nando’s, had become such a strong household name in countries such as the United Kingdom and the US.
So when a fellow student of Dlamini’s at Harvard spoke of his uncle’s established business in the pet treats industry and how they were looking for new proteins from Argentina and countries in Africa, little did that friend know he was speaking to his uncle’s next big business partner.
To a certain extent it was a no-brainer from the start.
“We looked at the numbers and it made sense,” Dlamini says.
“The pet food market in the US is huge. The global pet food industry is worth a $100 billion (about R1.4 trillion), of which about $60 billion is just the States’ share. To put it into perspective, South Arica’s comparative presence is about R1 billion, so we are less than 1% of the global market.
“Another way of looking at it is that there are more American families with pets than there are families with children.”
Dlamini adds that once all the angles had been examined and a team of experts had been gathered – many of them still employed elsewhere but sold on the idea of building a pet treat empire in SA – they were ready to prise open the doors of reluctant investors.
The IDC was one of the easier calls made for capital injection.
“We ticked a lot of their boxes. We were creating jobs, we employed black entrepreneurs, became export brokers and are environmentally friendly.”
Expecting hurdles at some point along the way Dlamini and his fellow eager beavers found out that, without much access to equity, they were facing an uphill battle to secure more investment.
But persistent efforts to sway captains of enterprise saved the day in 2017 as efforts were under way to unlock the liquidity needed for Maneli’s comprehensive sourcing, storing, manufacturing and packaging facility.
When that facility was formally opened on September 1 last year by Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry Bulelani Magwanishe, Nandi was nowhere on the horizon.
It could be that the pet treats industry in South Africa was simply too small.
However, realising that the market for treats in SA is vastly undersubscribed, Dlamini set out to create Nandi, a uniquely African brand.
Nandi has a range of products that exemplify the adage that “local is lekker”, not only in sheer nyammyness, but in name as well.
Treats called Karoo Ostrich and Kalahari Lamb have taken off like wildfire and altogether 11 products currently grace local shelves.
“We’re experiencing unprecedented demand and plan to be on all continents before the end of the year.
“We’re also looking at launching another five products, one of which is called Zulu Chicken, but we’re still in two minds about it because research has shown that some people wonder why the chicken is Zulu,” Dlamini laughed.
But hiccups with manufacturing and marketing don’t faze the entrepreneur who, from the time he was “a young boy surrounded by poverty, knew that I wanted to do something in the line of job creation”.
Of course that path was potholed by problems or, as Dlamini’s positive outlook sees it, challenges.
There was the decision he made to risk everything, including giving up a plush consultancy job at McKinsey, followed by the responsibility of assimilating a tenacious team of entrepreneurial peers with his co-founder Siphamandla Ndawonde.
And finally, they had to convince the investment fraternity that Maneli Pets was a winning idea.
“It’s never easy,” Dlamini says. “But it’s worth it in the end.”
All it takes to succeed is dogged determination.
In
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WHERE TO FIND THE TREATS
. Animal lovers can find Nandi treats such as Karoo Ostrich and Kalahari Lamb at Absolute Pets and other premium pet stores
. If you own a veterinarian practice you can stock the product by contacting Midlands Veterinary Wholesalers SA, visit www.mvwsa.com
. If you are a pet store, contact Cube Route Logistics for stocking details, www.cuberoute.co.za
