Making Ends Meet From Jam
Lesedi Mkhutshwa | Monday March 29, 2021 12:26
The self-funded business, which is currently operating from her home in the village, is currently the talk of the town as it offers freshly home-made fruity jam. In an interview with Business Monitor, the 46-year-old explains she started exploring her self-taught talent of making jam using different indigenous and exotic fruits back in 2005.
The mother of three reveals that her now famous morula jam is something her family has been making over decades, adding that her jam has found a lucrative market in Francistown with the demand exhausting her supply.
The jam maker said she offers different sizes of the morula jams at reasonable pricing ranging from P15 to P20.
According the entrepreneur, she currently uses house-to-house marketing strategy in order to avail her morula jam to her clients.
Kgosietsile also makes different types of jams looking at different seasons, adding that after the harvesting period she makes watermelons and pumpkins jam, which are not doing so well in the market.
Equally, she produces mulberry fruit jam during the fruit’s pick season. She says the business is currently doing well after people went nuts over her morula jam, which was posted on ‘Strictly BW locally made products’ Facebook page. “Some of my clients have literally begged me to relocate to the second city so that they can easily get hold of the morula jam. This is something, which I would have to come up with a plan for, so that I can avail my products to them,” said Kgosietsile.
Like any businesses persons in the country, she encounters impediments. She highlights business location as one of her biggest challenges.
She says in Mmadinare there is no demand at all, explaining that many people in the village do not even value her business.
“To the villagers in Mmadinare, I am just making jam and they want to eat it for free or get it on credit, but never pay me,” she bemoans.
Kgosietsile says for that reason, she was running her business at a loss until her sister advised her to consider tapping into a new market in Francistown. “Just a week in Francistown I made over P500 something that I haven’t experienced since I started my business,” she shared. “After that I received close to 25 orders in a day hence double the profits.”
Kgosietsile says in future she wants to approach financial institutions for loans or grants so that she can grow her business in order for it to flourish.
The workaholic reveals that if she gets financial assistance she would then register a company and brand her products so that it can become industrious and be able to supply big retail outlets.
Aside from her humble jam business, Kgosietsile says she also sells ornamental plants and flowers. She advises young people to explore their talents and be able to use the same skills to put food on the table.