Friday 1 June 2012

Small stepping stones

It’s Friday! Yeah! Shjoe how time flies! The days just seem to flow into each other and before we blink, its weekend again. Well, not really, but you know what I mean!

Ouma and Oupa are house-sitting for friends a few blocks away and we find ourselves home alone again. I’m posting this blog from the library as our internet connection has gone mobile again – and will be mobile for the next 10 days.

Yesterday morning I visited SEDA, the new (and possibly more active!) SA version of the SBDC. They are apparently keen to support new business initiatives in hopes of providing employment to South Africans. My visit was incredibly disappointing. I think I was in Alex’s office for the whole of 7 minutes, leaving behind a lovely hot cup of Rooibos tea that I didn’t even get time to drink! He didn’t ask me ONE single question, showed no real interest in my idea or research and his only suggestion was that I follow up with the Health Authorities first.

I had planned to visit the Health Inspectors after my appointment with SEDA, and went to the only Municipal office I could find. I had previously contacted the municipality about locating a health inspector and certification and they’d fobbed me off by suggesting I fetch the required forms and take it from there. Yesterday, however, the receptionist called the right department straight away and I was able to leave my number and details so that the correct health inspector could visit me.

It seems that SEDA can assist in helping us market our products and will contribute (quite significantly!) towards printing car signage, flyers, business cards, product stickers, etc. Hopefully they’ll be more helpful into the future!

With our without SEDA, we’re going ahead and making the arrangements we need to make to get started. The hunt is on for a suitably large chest freezer, a hand blender and a digital scale – the only real equipment we need to get going. Next I need to start making a small batch of food to determine the pricing for each individual product and then I can calculate selling prices.

It won’t be long now and we’ll be ready to sell our first batch of products …..and that thought is very scary, and very exciting at the same time!


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