• Jessica Boonstra started online fresh food and household goods retailer, Yebo Fresh, from her garage in 2018.
• Aimed at consumers living in townships, its operations have grown tremendously during lockdown.
• One of its challenges was delivering groceries in places often without street names or house numbers.

Townships in SA have largely been excluded from the online shopping revolution, despite representing at least 40% of the national grocery market, according to Jessica Boonstra, founder of Yebo Fresh.

Seeing a gap in the market, Boonstra started the business from her garage in 2018, offering a seamless online shopping service for residents living in townships in the Cape Town area.

It has since grown to a full-scale operation, from a 2 400m² warehouse.

"People living in townships often lose many hours of their day, most relying on overcrowded public transport to go to a supermarket, and we saw the need to provide a service to people that would overcome these issues," says Boonstra.

Yebo Fresh, therefore, was inspired by the need for transformation of online shopping and making quality, fresh food and household goods accessible to everyone, regardless of where they live.

The business model involves a hyper-localised approach, working and growing along with the communities it serves. Customers place orders for delivery through its website, WhatsApp, SMS, email, Facebook light or requesting a call back.

"Coming from the Netherlands, I was able to see the growth of online retail there, and how drastically it changed people's lives for the better, be it for safety or convenience," says Boonstra.

"It was very interesting for me to see how online shopping has evolved here, and how much growth could take place in the township market. The township market is often overlooked but deserves to be taken seriously in terms of business opportunities in innovation." 

Lockdown growth

The business has grown tremendously over the lockdown period. This meant moving into a new bigger warehouse, hiring over 40 new staff members, building new systems and introducing new processes - all of that while respecting Covid-19 related health and safety measures.

"Yebo Fresh became more than a company and turned into a mission: getting quality food out as fast and efficiently as possible in order to feed hungry families while maintaining our business principles," says Boonstra. One of the practical challenges faced was the way in which to deliver groceries in environments where there are often no street names or numbers on houses. Through employing local staff with local knowledge and mobile technology to coordinate with our customers and drivers, this challenge was overcome.

Entrepreneurship

"I personally believe the best reason to start a company, even more so than having a great idea or a strong drive to be successful, is for a founder or team of founders to be driven by a strong purpose or belief," says Boonstra.

"If there is a problem or opportunity that keeps you awake and spending tremendous time on, [and] it gives you energy, you've got something potentially powerful."

At the same time, she emphasises that "entrepreneuring" is tough and exhausting at times.

"But in our case, everyone in the team, including our investors, all share the same underlying drive to provide good access to good food, create jobs and make a positive impact in township communities. That is what keeps us going," says Boonstra.   

"Before lockdown, we were receiving a couple of hundred orders a month. Now, we process thousands of orders every single day."

Future vision

She hopes to expand the business nationally and possibly even internationally in future.

"Currently, we are adapting to the fast growth that has taken place, especially in the last few months. We are grateful for the powerful networks and partnerships we have built allowing us to provide not only to private homes but also to more and more township businesses such as daycare centres, street vendors and township restaurants and to the NGOs and soup kitchens that rely on us to deliver fresh food to them every week," she says.

"We are keen to engage with any other organisations in townships buying or consuming vast quantities of food on a weekly or monthly basis. We'd like to learn more about how they operate, what they need and to see if we can lower their expenses and save them from lots of headaches by partnering with them."

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