The Cambridge dictionary of an entrepreneur is, “someone who starts their own business, especially when this involves seeing a new opportunity,” underpinning the concepts of material gain from identifying an external need. Yet, for many, entrepreneurship holds a different meaning. In South Africa, a country with high unemployment and poverty rates, entrepreneurship often comes from desperation – the need to have enough to escape the present situation of no income, and a scarcity of opportunities that will alleviate the circumstances.
Now a business valued at over two million rands, CoffeeMM was started by young entrepreneur Mhlengi Ngcobo from the nexus of his love for coffee and the dire need to improve his livelihood, eventually also morphing into the personal calling that he felt towards improving the livelihoods of others. Starting in 2017 as a small-batch and artisanal coffee roastery based in Stellenbosch, CoffeeMM opened its first coffee shop in 2021 with assistance from Ranyaka Community Transformation at the CoCreate Hub. In 2023, the CoffeeMM Academy opened, allowing for a holistic undertaking of the coffee industry and exponentially increasing the social impact that CoffeeMM could have. March 2024 saw the opening of Maties Coffee Hub, a coffee shop established in the heart of Stellenbosch University’s campus in collaboration with Stellenbosch University to offer students good quality and ethically sourced coffee.
Beyond this growth in operations, Ngcobo has received many accolades, inclusive of being listed in Forbes 30 under 30, recently being the African Young Business Leader of the Year finalist at the AABLA Awards 2024, and receiving multiple features in big publishing houses in South Africa. Despite CoffeeMM only selling one bag of coffee beans in its first year of operating in 2017, the success in the subsequent years is a testament to the power of entrepreneurship to mobilize and empower individuals to change their lives. Beyond that, entrepreneurship is also providing Ngcobo with the agency to challenge and redefine the status quo, and he is proud of the positive impact that CoffeeMM has.
Meet Entrepreneur Mhlengi Ngcobo
In the face of adversity, Ngcobo sees opportunity – the basis of his entrepreneurship journey and the motto that he wishes to spread, especially amongst the youth of South Africa where unemployment rates are highest amongst persons between the ages of 18 and 35. Over the last two years, Ngcobo, through the CoffeeMM Academy, has presented Entrepreneurship Courses at nine low-income high schools in and around Stellenbosch and Cape Town to over 300 learners, directly addressing the economic crisis and decreased morale that youth unemployment causes. The curriculum takes learners through the steps of starting their businesses firstly by identifying problems they see around them and then empowering them with the skills and knowledge to change their situations, despite the lack of opportunities or support that they might face. Learners are then challenged to work in groups to come up with solutions to the identified problems and turn the solutions into a profitable business.
A fundamental teaching of the Entrepreneurship Course is to urge students to take the pain points in their lives and to use them as ideas for their business – mimicking Ngcobo’s entrepreneurship history. During his high school career, Ngcobo was diagnosed with young hypertension and prescribed to limit his caffeine intake. In pursuit of understanding this diagnosis, Ngcobo sought to understand the science of caffeine, developing a keen interest in coffee in the process and empowering him with the knowledge of how to keep hypertension at bay while still enjoying his daily brew. Furthermore, when completing a project management module at Stellenbosch University, he decided to focus on developing a coffee roastery, building on his passion for coffee without knowing that the knowledge gained would soon become advantageous.
At 22, during his final year of completing a Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering from Stellenbosch University, Ngcobo received a letter of academic exclusion stating that he could not continue his studies. After moving from Johannesburg to Stellenbosch for university, Ngcobo found himself in a desperate situation financially and with limited opportunities, impelling him to respond quickly to secure his livelihood. Thus, CoffeeMM was born out of necessity and entrepreneurship became the lifeline that allowed Ngcobo to transform a dire situation into an opportunity, building on his existing interest and knowledge of coffee. He set off on a pursuit of distributing excellent quality roasted coffee with bigger dreams of how coffee can be a mobilizer of good for others in positions similar to what he found himself in.
Coffee Fuels Our Dreams
While CoffeeMM is dedicated to supplying excellent coffee and services, in the bigger context, coffee is considered the vehicle that Ngcobo can use to mobilize the change that he wants to impart to the world. The focus points for Ngcobo include a long-term goal for the coffee industry on the African continent, whereas the second is reflected in the social work done through the CoffeeMM Academy.
- The Coffee Industry on the African Continent
While coffee is depicted as a luxurious commodity, each cup also portrays the meeting point of various complex aspects of the coffee industry. In fact, among many elements of the coffee industry inequality is present, especially in coffee bean farming. On average, a coffee farmer earns only seven to ten percent of the retail price of coffee as the coffee beans are sold to middlemen, leaving the farmer impoverished. As with many other commodities, value is added through processing raw products – which would be the sorting and roasting of coffee beans – yet, due to the rural nature of where the biggest coffee farms are located, the infrastructure to process coffee beans is not present, thereby perpetuating the disparity in incomes of coffee traders.
These are systemic challenges that stem from various factors, inclusive of language and technological barriers, and, as complex problems do, they require complex solutions. While CoffeeMM sources ethical coffee, the long-term goal is to build route-to-market infrastructure for small-scale coffee farmers on the African continent to access the market directly, thereby increasing their income by removing the middleman and giving them bargaining power to negotiate the prices of their product. This is a radical and expansive undertaking for CoffeeMM that will unfold over a long time but is reflected in each decision that it makes as each deal or new venture takes the business closer to realizing it.
- The Social Impact of the CoffeeMM Academy
CoffeeMM is dedicated to developing the local coffee culture and making it more inclusive and diverse. This year, the CoffeeMM Academy hosted its second Barista Battle, a competition designed for baristas to come together and network amongst themselves and the broader coffee community, compete for prizes, get exposure through the CoffeeMM social media channels, and – most importantly – get the recognition that they deserve for the vital role that they play in the success of coffee shops. Being a barista can be challenging, from the technical skills that go into preparing coffee to maintaining the coffee station and the customer service aspect – and they often go unnoticed or unappreciated.
CoffeeMM also creates a positive social impact through the courses offered by the CoffeeMM Academy, inclusive of barista training, coffee roasting, and hospitality training. These courses focus on vocational and skills training to equip graduates with the confidence and competence to excel in the coffee industry, and graduates have gone on to find employment all over the world. The courses are offered at competitive prices and payment plans can be arranged, plus, multiple courses are sponsored for competition prizes or those in need. This year, CoffeeMM sponsored four barista training courses, valued at R2 650 each, and two coffee roasting courses, valued at R5 000 each, of which one went to a CoffeeMM employee to develop their skills.
Conclusion
A cup of coffee from CoffeeMM is the tangible product of entrepreneur Ngcobo’s craft mastered through diligent work and his dream of creating a life different from the one that he was handed, and that so many face. Ngcobo is a purveyor of entrepreneurship, especially in the South African context with inflated poverty and unemployment rates, realizing the power that it holds to not only create personal opportunities from hardship but to also produce positive change on a bigger scale. When you support CoffeeMM, you support intentional decision-making that not only minimizes harm but aims to actively improve the world in which it operates. You support a business that is passionate, yet critical, about the coffee industry and dedicated to the betterment of South Africa.
