No Small Wonder – revolutionary slow cookers
Text and images: Andrea Abbott. Article from the January 2015 issue of Country Life Magazine.
Who’d have thought that one of the most revolutionary slow cookers would be as simple as an African-print beanbag?
Isn’t it infuriating when you’re slaving away in the kitchen preparing dinner and there’s a power outage? If you’re like me, you boil over with anger while waiting for the lights to come back on, cursing Eskom all the while. Or drive out in search of supper, or make do with cornflakes. But perhaps you’re a person who sees opportunity in adversity; a chance to make a change for the better?
One who did is entrepreneur Sarah Collins, founder of the Wonderbag, a South African-made, ‘powerless’ slow cooker that’s finding its way into kitchens around the world. During those rolling power outages in the bleak times of load shedding in 2008, Sarah thought back to the days when her grandmother would take simmering pots off the stove and insulate them with blankets and cushions. It was a method that retained the heat for hours, with the end result of a perfectly cooked casserole. But it wasn’t Grandma’s own idea.
“Slow cooking is the oldest cooking technology in the world,” says Sarah. Building on that age-old method, she experimented and came up with a more convenient version of Gran’s contraption. Made from traditional shweshwe African-print fabric, the Wonderbag resembles a beanbag filled with recycled chipped foam. “Moshy Mathe, a township seamstress I met in an airport queue, created the design after I showed her a sketch of my idea,” says Sarah. “At the time of our meeting, she was wearing a shweshwe outfit. Moshy is still an integral part of our business – as a real brand ambassador, manufacturer and Wonderwoman.”
Initially, the bags were made at Youth for Survival, an NGO in Pretoria, and sold at flea markets. “We sold out at every market we went to,” Sarah says. Rapid growth over six years has resulted in two businesses: the parent one in South Africa, and the second in the USA where, Sarah says, slow cooking is well established. “About 68 per cent of people cook with crock pots.”
The bags were recently listed on amazon.com and other online stores, and there are agencies in the UK and several other European countries. “Currently, we’re making 5 000 Wonderbags a month,” production manager Tanah Dankert told me, as we toured the factory she set up in July 2014, in Tongaat on the KwaZulu-Natal North Coast. It’s a happy place, background music just audible above the whirr of sewing machines and the lively chat of 30 or so workers, most of them women.
Tanah takes me through the different stages of production, telling me that Wonderbags have evolved considerably. “Before we moved in here, everything was outsourced. Now, it all happens under one roof. We’ve gone from zero to hero in terms of quality control, packaging, and consistency.” With sales doubling on a monthly basis, Tanah anticipates production rising soon to between ten and twenty thousand bags per month.
Globally, according to Sarah, 700 000 have been sold to date. That’s an impressive figure for a no-plug, fabric slow cooker handmade in little old South Africa. But for Sarah, named one of Fortune magazine’s Top 10 Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs in 2013, it’s no surprise. From the outset, she knew that Wonderbag “was going to be a global game changer”. As Jon de Bufanos, MD of the South African company says, “Sarah has no shortage of ambition.”
It’s a marvellous success story and an inspiration for aspiring entrepreneurs. But there’s another, even better story. And this one’s about making the world a better place. Underpinning the creation of the Wonderbag was Sarah’s long-held wish to ease the impact of health, social, economic and environmental problems that face Africa and developing countries. “I want to see development done successfully and not through failed systems of NGOs,” she says. “My main drivers are female economic empowerment and creating a business that is successful financially, socially and environmentally.”
Wall posters in the Tongaat factory attest to some of these goals, a major one fuel saving and the consequent reduction of carbon footprint. ‘One million people using Wonderbags means 500 000 carbon tons saved’, announces one poster. ‘5 million paraffin users will save $ 1.35 billion on fuel’, announces another. “Our general statement is that you can save 30 per cent of all your cooking fuel requirements through Wonderbag usage,” Sarah says. To illustrate this, Jon tells of the Zulu Hut restaurant in Durban. “They serve traditional Zulu meals like tripe, samp and beans – food that takes a lot of cooking. The owner bought a catering size Wonderbag and it saves her R5 000 a month on her gas bill.”
Reduced reliance on fossil fuel is always good news for the environment, as is saving trees. In rural areas, cooking over wood fires is still the norm. If Wonderbags are used, the need for firewood is reduced and this translates into hacking down fewer trees.
It also translates into a range of health and social benefits for rural women and girls, who are usually tasked with collecting firewood. So, for example, less time spent collecting wood means girls have more time to go to school and women have more time to spend with their families, or to find ways of earning an income that could lift them out of poverty. And when open fires no longer form a big part of daily life, indoor pollution diminishes and the number of burn injuries are reduced.
And so, an old idea made new is having far-reaching impacts of a kind that Sarah’s grandmother could never have imagined. The journey from flea market to world stage is truly, er, wonderful and I ask Sarah what stands out for her. She tells me there are many highlights, including receiving a vote of confidence from UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and prime ministers from around the world at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2013.
And right up with that is another defining moment for Sarah. “A woman came to me in rural KZN and said she could now afford to send her children to school because of Wonderbag.”
Now that’s life changing.
Wonderbag Foundation
♦ The foundation distributes bags to the underprivileged through its Buy One, Give One scheme that operates throughout the USA and Europe.
♦ For each Wonderbag bought, one is donated to a rural family in need in Africa.
♦ Within South Africa Wonderbags can be donated via www.nb-wonderbag.co.za
|
Subscribe to Country LifeIf you enjoy serenity and beauty, and getting away from it all, subscribe to Country Life to be transported every month to a different back road journey. Subscribe to our NewsletterSign up to receive our digital newsletter and get the heart of the countryside – features, events and competitions – delivered to your inbox weekly. Latest issue of Country LifeSee what’s in the latest exciting issue of Country Life. |