“Local Patrons Refuse To Eat Anywhere”: Diepsloot Woman’s Braai Business Earns Her R60k per Month

• Miss Mafumo runs Hile Kaya, a braai chicken, steak and pap business in Diepsloot that generates between R1,000 and R3,000 per day depending on how busy it gets
• Her secret family braai spice blend has made the business so popular that Sunday church-goers have to pre-order their meals before the meat sells out
• The business currently employs four people, and Miss Mafumo has plans to grow it into a fully professional sit-down restaurant

A Diepsloot woman quietly built a food business so special, one plate at a time. Miss Mafumo and her husband run Hile Kaya in Diepsloot Extension 7. This is a township food business that sells braai chickens, steak and pap using a secret family spice blend that has kept customers coming back for years.

On a normal day, the business pulls in between R1,000 and R1,500 in sales, and on busy days that can jump to between R2,000 and R3,000. It all adds up to as much as R60,000 per month during peak periods.

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Pap and chicken plates start at R60 and pap and steak plates are R80. Customers pay in cash or via Capitec bank transfers. The food is prepared on a braai outside the small building where the business operates.

Patrons from the nearby tavern have become regulars, and Sunday church crowds have to place orders in advance to make sure they get their food before it sells out.

The business currently employs Miss Mafumo, her husband, and two additional staff members. She has plans to eventually turn Hile Kaya into a proper sit-down restaurant.

The informal economy

Hile Kaya is not just a success story on its own. It is part of a much larger picture that many economists are only beginning to fully appreciate.

South Africa's township economy is far bigger than most people realise. GG Alcock, who wrote a book called KasiNomics Unleashed all about the informal economy, says it is worth at least R1 trillion.

He says it is not just small survivalist businesses scraping by. It is a proper, organised sector with real businesses in food, property and car services that run just as professionally as anything you would find in a shopping mall.

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The way South Africa measures unemployment also tells an incomplete story. Former Capitec boss Gerrie Fourie has said the country's official unemployment figure of 33% is misleading because it does not count people who are making money outside of formal jobs.

Once you factor in informal income and passive earnings, Fourie believes the real number is somewhere between 10% and 15%.

In other words, far more South Africans are finding ways to earn than the official statistics suggest, and businesses like Hile Kaya are proof of exactly that.

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Source: Briefly News