Gontse Selaocoe is a successful jam entrepreneur who is planning to share his inspiring story with the youth enrolled in the same project where he found his joy.
Orange Farm, South Africa (18 October 2023) – When Gontse Selaocoe’s grandparents used to make him harvest their fruit trees and help make jam during school holidays he thought he was being punished. Little did he realise that this would plant the seed for his thriving small business.
Twenty-four-year-old Selaocoe is the owner of All Day Jam, based in Orange Farm, Johannesburg, which employs five people as well as a squad of commission-based salespeople.
Besides introducing him to the joys of jam-making, Selaocoe also has his grandmother to thank for getting his business off the ground.
“After matric I used to spend a lot of my time on pantsula dancing, and I’d saved R1000 for a new pair of dancing shoes. But then my gran suggested that I start making jam and so I made the decision to use that money as capital to start producing my own product to sell to customers.”
He attributes a great deal of his business savvy to the ground-breaking Step Up 2 A Start Up programme, which is run annually across South Africa by youth development experts Primestars. The programme aims to empower the youth by teaching them to identify opportunities in the green economy and create community-based business solutions. It culminates in an entrepreneurship Boot Camp and competition for the best business ideas.
Selaocoe took part in the programme in 2017 when he was in Grade 11, and made it to the Top 10.
“In terms of mentorship and awareness it helped me a lot, particularly the Bootcamp element,” he says. “At school entrepreneurship isn’t taught. Even learners who study business aren’t taught how to start a business. Being in the programme I was taught the basics about starting a business, and really critical elements such as being able to pitch your business to potential clients and investors.”
He’s since participated in numerous other entrepreneurship programmes and accelerators that have helped him fine-tune his business.
“We have introduced unique flavours into the market because we’ve learnt that we have to be innovative. In the market you’ll find strawberry, apricot and peach jam so we decided to introduce tomato jam, yellow melon jam and pear jam.”
Being new to the food industry also meant he had to learn the intricacies of the procedures a food-focused business has to follow, from the start of the production chain until it reaches the end user.
His pantsula connections have also proved useful in growing his business.
“Because I’m a dancer I know a lot of dancers who often struggle to make money. So I’ve taken on a lot of those guys as resellers, and they sell the product on a commission basis.”
All Day Jam is currently focused on getting more products into more stores, especially the big chains, hotels and restaurants. With this in mind, Selaocoe is currently expanding his production facility so that there’s more cold room space for raw materials.
Selaocoe has also been invited to join the #StepUpAlumni network, which aims to offer learners on the Step Up 2 A Start Up programme access to mentorship, entrepreneurial support and inspiration from the programme’s previous beneficiaries.
For Selaocoe, being invited to join the Step Up 2 A Start Up alumni network provides an opportunity to share his experience as an entrepreneur.
“I’m from the township, I’ve seen the struggle of the youth. I’ll be able to tell Step Up participants that there’s an internet around us in the form of our parents and grandparents. They have so much knowledge that they can share with us, and potential business ideas that we may not have thought of. We don’t want them to leave, and not pass on this knowledge – while we have time, let’s take this information and not play with our time.”
And even though his business has taken off, it’s still firmly rooted around family – the new, expanded Jam facility is being built at his grandparents’ home, right next to the fruit trees he used to harvest as a schoolboy.
by 