SPOTLIGHT ON AMBLE PANTRY: Food by the community for the community

For a sophisticated emerging market economy like South Africa, tackling one of the world’s highest Gini coefficient rates and youth unemployment numbers, supporting small local businesses and investing in internal markets is a smart economic growth strategy. Businesses like Amble Pantry make up an incredible network of companies that help reduce our carbon footprint while providing employment and making a change in the community by buying products that are from the community by the community.

The Amble Pantry Story

Amble Pantry is a Cape Town based South African company that offers good quality, fine foods produced by local farmers. The business’s mission is to celebrate South Africa’s wonderful, hard-working farmers, beekeepers, and makers by getting their products in the pantries of people who are conscious consumers, enjoy knowing where their food comes from and love consuming locally made products.

Founder of Amble Pantry

Danette Mulder recalls some of her fondest memories growing up in the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa were sitting around the table, sharing locally made food and produce was part of her daily routine. After years of travelling around the world as an adult, Danette found that no other place in the world had a rich culture of gathering, hosting, and serving food like South Africa.

She wanted to celebrate South Africa’s fertile land while focusing on the bespoke culture and heritage through good quality food. The first thing that Danette did was host events that used local products, highlighting local farmers, creating a great relationship with them, and this led to her placing large orders for her friends and family. Thus, the idea to marry wonderful local farmers, beekeepers, and makers with consumers through Amble, was born.

Amble On Fostering Growth Within Communities

Amble is proud to be one of the biggest support- ers of the local community because buying local means that a large portion of the money exchange stays within the local community. This inadvertently results in increased job opportunities, such that economists have reported that buying local encourages a sense of culture into the community.

With a small team behind Amble, every product is thoughtfully chosen and then packaged in a signature minimalist packaging that makes the products integrate into any household while giving the consumer the option to recycle and reuse.

The current range consists of extra virgin, olive oil, raw honey, Egyptian Dukkah, organic Rooibos Loose Leaf Tea, Tahini, almond butter, and apple cider vinegar. Amble believes that what sets them apart is how they are always in search of the finest quality, single batch, and single origin food products, only adding a product to their offering when it's something they have personally used and if the quality is exceptional.

From courier companies to printing houses to glass manufacturers and farmers, Amble might be small, but it is truly mighty with regards to its network and connecting with both big and small local businesses. Some of the companies Amble works with include FNB South Africa, Hot Ink Printing, The Courier Guy, Bonpak, CK Printing, Alphabet Social, Merrypak, Geskenk, Maree Louw Photography, Kalmoesfontein and Fabulous Flowers.

CHALLENGES FACED BY SMALL BUSINESSES.

McKinsey reports that SMEs represent over 98% of South African businesses and employ 60% of the country’s workforce across sectors. These small and medium-sized entities make up for 25% of job growth in the private sector thus, making it essential to source from and support small businesses wherever possible. Even though SMEs like Amble are some of the South African economic drivers, there are many adversities these ventures face and are yet to overcome. One of the challenges Amble faces is its product line being easily accessible up against competition with products easily found in big conglomerates like supermarkets.

The business is aware that when it comes to getting their products, consumers have an added layer of admin because they can’t just pick them up from their nearest supermarket. Danette says to combat the challenge of consumer access to product lines, they have decided to offer home delivery at a fraction of the cost of usual couriers and are implementing a few collection points in and around Cape Town and Stellenbosch, so it is easier to stock up on Amble favourites.

Furthermore, Amble has embarked on a new business journey into the cooperate gifting space, providing gift hampers that are filled with locally produced products as opposed to filler products that people wouldn’t normally purchase for themselves.

Future Goals for Amble

Danette and her team aspire to expand their product offerings by including an in-house herbal tea range. And when it comes to more long-term goals, Amble is hoping to expand their customer base and export their products to neighbouring countries and abroad. Amble Pantry doesn’t only aim to spread a single narrative of the importance of buying local but one of transparency and making sure that consumers know the history of the products they are consuming, what’s in their food, how it is made and where exactly it comes from.