The South African sweets and confectionery market endures competition from international manufacturers and suppliers all the time. Food Review investigates the reasons behind this.
The sweets and confectionary sector in SA is, according to Umit Aydin, Turkish business man and director of O’Yeah Sweets, a far-cry from that of first world countries. But contents and packaging of the highest hygiene and quality standards, at an affordable cost, are achievable, he says.
O’Yeah sweets started manufacturing in Johannesburg at the beginning of the year. So far, the outside bag is manufactured by local packaging supplier Nurscon Plastics, however the individual wrappers are imported as the standards have not yet been reached locally, says Aydin.
Aydin goes on to say this type of sweet is very difficult to manufacture, the chocolate toffee flavour has more than 25 ingredients and it takes five recipes just to get it right. ‘We didn’t create the recipes,’ he says, ‘but we developed the recipe so that it suits the South African market using local flavour suppliers, Symrise, as suppliers of the strawberry flavour.
From what I know, we are also the only sweet manufacturers using real coco in the chocolate variety.’ In the process of importing his product to Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Namibia, Aydin can’t help noticing that
in Africa, large companies don’t really manufacture the sweets locally, it’s usually smaller companies that do and the quality is not good! ‘We make sweets that I would give to my children!’ he says.
On the unbelievable cost of the product, Aydin says, R5,95 per packet of 100 sweets allows our product to be far reaching. ‘O’Yeah sweets must be available to everyone. It is the only product of its kind in SA and every income bracket can afford it and it’s a quality that suits everyone.’
In the next four to eight years Aydin plans on being one of the biggest confectionery producers in SA. He adds, ‘If not in turnover than we would like to have the biggest customer basis.’ Aydin concludes, ‘At the moment we don’t have any competition and our style and quality differentiates us.
The director of Tongaat Hullet asked me – Umit, what are you doing differently? I said, we are not going to affect the market, we are growing the market! My main concern is to stop importing confectionery products into this country.’
