How Makhamisa Foods Turned Indigenous Food Knowledge into Industrial Innovation | MPhil CS, GIBS.

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:01]Hi, my name is Uyanda Sibiya, also known as Uyanda Mbulie.

[00:00:06]I am a Master of Philosophy in Corporate Strategy candidate at the Gordon Institute of Business Science, GIBS.

[00:00:15]>> [music] >> As part of the dynamic innovation elective to examine adaptive agro-processing innovation within South Africa's food manufacturing system, my case study focus is Makhamisa Foods, which is a 100% black-owned food manufacturing company.

[00:00:43]Today I'll conduct an in-depth analysis of T dynamic capabilities framework within the food sector, focusing specifically on adaptive agro-processing innovation, indigenous food knowledge commercialization, and institutional constraints in South Africa's concentrated food manufacturing system at Makhamisa Foods.

[00:01:09]>> And why do you wash your hands when you enter?

[00:01:11]>> To make sure that if there's bacteria on my hands, >> Mhm.

[00:01:15]>> it's washed down here before I move into the processing plant.

[00:01:19]>> Okay, that's >> It's just to to to to reduce risk um related to food contamination.

[00:01:29]>> Okay.

[00:01:29]>> Yeah.

[00:01:47]>> Good day. My name is Terrence Pokane Ledwaba, managing director at Makhamisa Foods. Makhamisa Foods is a condiment manufacturing outfit enterprise based in Sebokeng Edenvale. We manufacture a number of sauces and condiments that include mayonnaises, dressings, bastings, and more. We do our own brand such as this sauce. We also manufacture relishes for ourselves and the third [music] parties. We also do a lot of contract manufacturing for the QSR market. What inspired this journey [music] is actually upon navigating the the landscape in the culinary space, [music] discovered that there's no black-owned sauce manufacturing company in South Africa. And more to that, there's no proudly African brand this 12 and 1/2 billion market. And then we felt [music] like this is one of the ways to actually create or craft our own stories using sauces as >> [music] >> a vehicle to make sure that our African stories are told authentically. Let me show you around and you'll also see our capabilities.

[00:02:43]>> The managing director of Makhathini's statement aligns directly with the study's first subsidiary research question concerning opportunity sensing within South Africa's concentrated food manufacturing sector.

[00:02:58]Makhathini identified an opportunity to formalize African culinary heritage within South Africa's condiment and food manufacturing market.

[00:03:09]The gap was not only a product gap, but also a representation and manufacturing gap, especially within the previously disadvantaged communities.

[00:03:21]African flavor, cultural tastes, township, and home-based food traditions, which are familiar to customers, though not sufficiently available, a scalable, packaged, food safety orientated, >> [music] >> retail ready products is what Makhathini responded to by bringing it to the market. Makhathini therefore sees an opportunity to convert indigenous taste knowledge into credible agro-processing proposition within a market dominated by established producers and standardized flavor categories, which really opened up the market, especially for African consumers.

[00:04:07]This study is strengthened by two complementary forms of visual evidence integrated into the current qualitative inquiry.

[00:04:16]The first consists of unpublished researcher-generated field footage, which I captured during a factory visit to Makhamisa Foods, involving direct interaction with Terrance Leluma, the managing director, and Pumsile Ngomo, who co-founded Makhamisa and is also a director.

[00:04:38]My next research question for the study was what opportunity did Makhamisa identify within South Africa's food manufacturing and condiment market that established producers were not adequately addressing, which the company felt they would address. [music] >> So, being part of the program, it has taught us quite a lot, and basically the quality of [music] contacts that we've already had through Endeavor and the JSE has been phenomenal.

[00:05:10]>> This footage is analytically significant because it captures operational routines associated with manufacturing disciplines, hygiene management, logistics coordination, and production capabilities, all of which are central [music] to distinguishing ordinary capabilities from dynamic capabilities within agro-processing environments. As qualitative evidence, the footage contributes to contextual description by enabling analysis not only of verbal claims, but also the special, procedural, and operational realities through which manufacturing capabilities is enabling and acted in practice.

[00:05:56]Makhonisa transformed indigenous recipe knowledge into agro-processing capabilities by moving from household cooking logic to industrial manufacturing logic.

[00:06:10]This required standardized taste, controlling ingredients, improving consistency, developing packaging, ensuring hygiene discipline, strengthening shelf stability, managing production routines, and meeting food safety expectations.

[00:06:30]The innovation therefore lies not only in the original recipe, but in the ability to convert cultural food knowledge into repeatable, scalable, commercially viable manufacturing capabilities, which makes them a dynamic, innovative company.

[00:07:02]How institutional resources, partnerships, and support mechanisms enabled Makhonisa's growth, and how did the same institutional relationships create dependency or vulnerability?

[00:07:22]>> We would really love to thank >> [music] >> everybody in the Endeavor team. We'd like to thank the JSE as well for everything that they've done for us, and we really appreciate this program.

[00:07:31][music] This program has been an eye-opener, and it's opened up doors for us [music] in order to expand our business.

[00:07:38]>> This evidence is analytically valuable because it documents the founders articulation of Makhamisa's market position, manufacturing identity, contract manufacturing capability, market access challenges, and export ambitions that the founders begin could be part of their growth path.

[00:08:02]>> Part of the SME accelerator program of the JSE helped us to overcome the challenge of accessing local markets. We have been struggling over the past 2 years to fill up our tanks here with product and the program actually accelerated us to put the key decision makers around the table to ensure that we secure those [music] contracts. We are able to expand into international markets including Africa and beyond, the far Asia, the Middle East, [music] Europe, and all of that.

[00:08:28]>> Makhamisa's growth was enabled by institutional resources, partnerships, and support mechanisms that assisted with market access, credibility, capability development, and expansion opportunities.

[00:08:43]However, the same relationships [music] may also create vulnerabilities through compliance pressures, repayment obligations, dependency on key contracts, exposure to institutional decisions, and working capital constraints. The case therefore shows that institutional support can both enable and constrain black industrialist growth, especially in Makhamisa's case. How does Makhamisa navigate the structural concentration of South Africa's food manufacturing and retail sectors while attempting to build legitimacy as a black-owned agro-processing manufacturer? Further to my site visit and discussions with the founders, they still wrote written responses to explain how Makhamisa navigates South Africa's concentrated food manufacturing and retail [music] sectors through product quality, manufacturing discipline, food safety systems, contract manufacturing, formal channels access, and most importantly, Afrocentric brand differentiation, which is very important in this sector and quite rare.

[00:10:06]However, entering retail and food services channels also creates pressure because large buyers demand consistency, competitive pricing, reliable logistics, compliance, packaging standards, volume readiness, and operational resilience.

[00:10:26]Makhamisa's experience therefore shows that market access is not only a success milestone, it is also a capability test, which is why [clears throat] I chose them for dynamic innovation.

[00:10:40]>> We make um these type of sauces.

[00:10:42]>> Mhm.

[00:10:43]>> So this is for Debonairs. So if you buy your pizza um your sweet and sour pizza, it's made from Makhamisa.

[00:10:52]>> [music] [music] >> A key focus in the next two to three years, we're looking at AFCFTA, the African Continental >> [music] >> Free Trade Agreement that has been implemented across the continent to make sure that we harmonize [music] food markets in the continent. And Makhamisa has identified that as an opportunity great opportunity to expand its operations, its a brand [music] development and export.

[00:11:23]>> [music] >> Lived experience has shown Makhamisa represents adaptive agro-processing innovation rather than food entrepreneurship because it does more than sell a food product. It gives you that lived experience that you have always known from your grandmother's kitchen.

[00:11:45]It combines indigenous food knowledge, manufacturing capability, institutional support, market channel strategy, and adaptive learning under difficult sectorial conditions.

[00:12:00]It is not shown in my study as disruptive innovation in its strict academic sense. However, its strong contribution is adaptive innovation creating competitive space within an established food manufacturing system by turning African culinary heritage into scalable industrial capability.

[00:12:29]Innovation in its traditional sense is often associated with technology disruptions and industrial transformation. Yet contemporary scholarship increasingly argues that innovation may also emerge through experience, symbolic atmosphere, cultural partnerships, and adaptive capability formation within structurally unequal systems.

[00:13:08]What emerges with this case study of Makanisa Food is the realities of black industrialists' participation, adaptive manufacturing capabilities, institutional negotiation, and indigenous food knowledge commercialization.

[00:13:28]This study shows that South Africa has a concentrated food economy. There are opportunities, but they are not always accessible.

[00:13:40]And Makhanya has been able to infiltrate, to make an impact in the market in a way that has never been seen before.

[00:13:52]And that is what I have found exciting about this case study and this journey into knowing Makhanya Foods, the founders, experiencing how they do their business has been very exciting for me.