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WHEN Nyaradzo Dhliwayo returned to Zimbabwe from South Africa where she had been studying in 2016, she struggled as a vegetarian to find a proper place to eat whenever she wanted to eat out, something that prompted her to find a solution.
Being a devoted Seventh day Adventist, Nyaradzo’s core beliefs centres in going back to the Edenic diet. Named after the Biblical story of the Garden of Eden, this diet focuses on eating only natural foods that would be available without human intervention (no processing).
“When I returned home there was no Zimbabwean restaurateur focusing on healthy food and as a vegetarian I struggled whenever I wanted to eat out. I knew I was not the only one, there were many who were choosing a healthier lifestyle and others whose health conditions required them to have special diets, yet business was not reacting fast enough to cater for their needs,” Nyaradzo told the Entrepreneurial Magazine.
“After a couple of weeks of struggling with what to eat and where to eat, I then decided to come up with a solution. This is how our nutrition start-up, Yanaya A Healthy Lifestyle was born. I turned my own frustration into a business.
“I invested US$50 of my own grocery money to buy my initial inventory. The $50 and my smart phone became my start-up capital. My rented apartment had a small kitchen, this is where I prepared my meals for sale. I had no car at the time so I would hire a taxi to do deliveries.”
From her daily sales, Nyaradzo would reinvest to buy the next day’s inventory. She started being invited to family events where the menu of choice was healthy meals, and this made her some extra income.
Three years into her start-up business, in 2019, she then borrowed US$5000 to scale up her sole proprietorship and open her first healthy grab and go booth. Within 7 months of opening the first grab and go booth she managed to pay off the loan and had accumulated enough internally generated funds to open Zimbabwe’s first exclusively healthy food sit in restaurant.
Yanaya now boosts of 7 Branches, 6 are physical locations and one is a virtual branch. Starting off as a small business, Nyaradzo managed to grow her business into restaurants that offer Edenic diets.
“Yanaya continues to launch innovative and pioneering products into the market. Our short-term goals are to widen our off the shelf product basket. We aim to introduce 2 more off the shelf products by end of 2021 to complement our dairy free plant-based yoghurt,” Nyaradzo said.
“We are also planning to increase our location footprint by adding 3 more locations before the end of 2021 and 11 more locations by 2024. We would also want to start producing for export by 2023.
“As all of these plans unfold, we hope to launch a world class mobile application using local developers. We hope to be processing at least 50% of new business virtually by 2023 even as we grow our location footprint.”
Nyaradzo added that when she started operations in 2016, her biggest challenge was mobility. It was difficult to move around fast enough. Over the years she have used third parties to run the company’s logistics until as a company they were motivated to start their own bike delivery service to beat the mobility challenge.
“Initially Yanaya was a passion project for me, what most would call a side hustle business. One of the toughest decisions I had to make was deciding to go full time and quit my salaried job. The prospects of making a bigger difference did help make the decision a little easier,” Nyaradzo revealed.
Touching on challenges in business, Nyaradzo said trying to cope with rapid business growth has kept the team on their toes and it takes a calculated business strategy not to drown in the wave.
“When we developed our dairy free plant-based yoghurt range, we did not anticipate the work we had to put in to get shelf space. This is a challenge we are still working to overcome. Often, we place our yoghurts instore under a consignment arrangement. This allows us to create a two-way win arrangement with store owners,” the successful business lady who is also a proud mother and wife said.
“Probably our biggest challenge stems from our own ambitions. We set out to develop physician approved meals and beverages, it’s a goal we take seriously. This has come with its own cost challenges. And as our brand is gaining in popularity, we notice traditionally big brands that focused on unhealthy fast foods, slowly drifting into our market space.
“We overcome this challenge by remaining customer focused and continuously proving to our customers that our business is not just for profit, we genuinely put their health first.”
In the spirit of giving back to society and corporate responsibility under the Yanaya Lifestye Mentorship Program, Nyaradzo mentors 10 aspiring young entrepreneurs, with two of the entrepreneurs having already established functional businesses.
Yanaya has brought positive change to the community at large. From the start of the Covid 19 Pandemic, the outlet has delivered over 20 thousand meals to frontline healthcare workers to date. In terms of creating employment, a total of 77 permanent staff have been hired and 60% of the staff are women.
“We directly and regularly procure from a minimum of 30 small scale rural farmers to also promote business ventures in rural areas, while pursuing our business goal as a company.”
Nyaradzo said that being a Digital marketing Officer at Seed Co, where she worked with a team of some of the best marketing professionals in the region, taught her most of the things she knows now and implement on a day to day basis in her enterprise.
WHEN Nyaradzo Dhliwayo returned to Zimbabwe from South Africa where she had been studying in 2016, she struggled as a vegetarian to find a proper place to eat whenever she wanted to eat out, something that prompted her to find a solution.
Being a devoted Seventh day Adventist, Nyaradzo’s core beliefs centres in going back to the Edenic diet. Named after the Biblical story of the Garden of Eden, this diet focuses on eating only natural foods that would be available without human intervention (no processing).
“When I returned home there was no Zimbabwean restaurateur focusing on healthy food and as a vegetarian I struggled whenever I wanted to eat out. I knew I was not the only one, there were many who were choosing a healthier lifestyle and others whose health conditions required them to have special diets, yet business was not reacting fast enough to cater for their needs,” Nyaradzo told the Entrepreneurial Magazine.
“After a couple of weeks of struggling with what to eat and where to eat, I then decided to come up with a solution. This is how our nutrition start-up, Yanaya A Healthy Lifestyle was born. I turned my own frustration into a business.
“I invested US$50 of my own grocery money to buy my initial inventory. The $50 and my smart phone became my start-up capital. My rented apartment had a small kitchen, this is where I prepared my meals for sale. I had no car at the time so I would hire a taxi to do deliveries.”
From her daily sales, Nyaradzo would reinvest to buy the next day’s inventory. She started being invited to family events where the menu of choice was healthy meals, and this made her some extra income.
Three years into her start-up business, in 2019, she then borrowed US$5000 to scale up her sole proprietorship and open her first healthy grab and go booth. Within 7 months of opening the first grab and go booth she managed to pay off the loan and had accumulated enough internally generated funds to open Zimbabwe’s first exclusively healthy food sit in restaurant.
Yanaya now boosts of 7 Branches, 6 are physical locations and one is a virtual branch. Starting off as a small business, Nyaradzo managed to grow her business into restaurants that offer Edenic diets.
“Yanaya continues to launch innovative and pioneering products into the market. Our short-term goals are to widen our off the shelf product basket. We aim to introduce 2 more off the shelf products by end of 2021 to complement our dairy free plant-based yoghurt,” Nyaradzo said.
“We are also planning to increase our location footprint by adding 3 more locations before the end of 2021 and 11 more locations by 2024. We would also want to start producing for export by 2023.
“As all of these plans unfold, we hope to launch a world class mobile application using local developers. We hope to be processing at least 50% of new business virtually by 2023 even as we grow our location footprint.”
Nyaradzo added that when she started operations in 2016, her biggest challenge was mobility. It was difficult to move around fast enough. Over the years she have used third parties to run the company’s logistics until as a company they were motivated to start their own bike delivery service to beat the mobility challenge.
“Initially Yanaya was a passion project for me, what most would call a side hustle business. One of the toughest decisions I had to make was deciding to go full time and quit my salaried job. The prospects of making a bigger difference did help make the decision a little easier,” Nyaradzo revealed.
Touching on challenges in business, Nyaradzo said trying to cope with rapid business growth has kept the team on their toes and it takes a calculated business strategy not to drown in the wave.
“When we developed our dairy free plant-based yoghurt range, we did not anticipate the work we had to put in to get shelf space. This is a challenge we are still working to overcome. Often, we place our yoghurts instore under a consignment arrangement. This allows us to create a two-way win arrangement with store owners,” the successful business lady who is also a proud mother and wife said.
“Probably our biggest challenge stems from our own ambitions. We set out to develop physician approved meals and beverages, it’s a goal we take seriously. This has come with its own cost challenges. And as our brand is gaining in popularity, we notice traditionally big brands that focused on unhealthy fast foods, slowly drifting into our market space.
“We overcome this challenge by remaining customer focused and continuously proving to our customers that our business is not just for profit, we genuinely put their health first.”
In the spirit of giving back to society and corporate responsibility under the Yanaya Lifestye Mentorship Program, Nyaradzo mentors 10 aspiring young entrepreneurs, with two of the entrepreneurs having already established functional businesses.
Yanaya has brought positive change to the community at large. From the start of the Covid 19 Pandemic, the outlet has delivered over 20 thousand meals to frontline healthcare workers to date. In terms of creating employment, a total of 77 permanent staff have been hired and 60% of the staff are women.
“We directly and regularly procure from a minimum of 30 small scale rural farmers to also promote business ventures in rural areas, while pursuing our business goal as a company.”
Nyaradzo said that being a Digital marketing Officer at Seed Co, where she worked with a team of some of the best marketing professionals in the region, taught her most of the things she knows now and implement on a day to day basis in her enterprise.
Her advice to aspiring and struggling entrepreneurs is to start something, to start somewhere, and to relentlessly pursue the idea.
Her advice to aspiring and struggling entrepreneurs is to start something, to start somewhere, and to relentlessly pursue the idea.
