By: Tebogo Mokwena
With his fleet of motorbikes and his own business model, Freddy Mahhumane aims not only to revolutionise the delivery sector but also to empower township economies while doing so. Although his business KasiD only launched in August this year, it has already made 1600 successful deliveries and has given more than R200,000 back to the businesses they work with.
Mahhumane told Vutivi News that KasiD was different from well-established delivery companies in that it provided delivery services mainly to local food makers such as Kota sellers, chicken dust sellers and street-food sellers, as well as established local restaurants and franchises such as KFC, Galito’s and McDonald’s. While KasiD was established in 2020, its launch was delayed to this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown.
“As a food delivery platform, we partner with formal and informal township food businesses to deliver their food in Ekurhuleni-based areas like Thembisa, Kempton Park, Midrand, Olifantsfontein and Centurion,” he said. The business has 15 motorbikes, which are driven by young people employed from Thembisa. “We charge R30 for delivery and take 10% of the delivery fee and reinvest it into the businesses we deliver food for,” Mahhumane said. “Since we launched, we have already reinvested a total of R260,000.”
Mahhumane said that they reinvested in these businesses because they wanted them to market themselves and help them to expand their client base. “We feel the strong need to reinvest and empower the local economy and to cut down on the red tape introduced by the competitors, giving these small food producers access to a bigger market,” he said. Mahhumane said that starting off was not easy, as he had to convince many food businesses of the importance of using a delivery service and migrating to a digital space.
“Many of these businesses are cash businesses, and when I introduced this model to them, it was difficult for them to adjust because they expected to get physical money and count it at the end of the day,” he explained. “It was very challenging for them to accept that a customer orders food and the money goes straight into a bank account. “Now customers can pay in cash and use their cards.”
Mahhumane started the business with earnings he made from working for almost two decades in the ICT sector. He said that KasiD’s rapid rise could be attributed to taking advantage of the gap left by major delivery companies. “When these companies announced that they would not be delivering in certain townships, I saw this as an opportunity,” the businessman said.
KasiD will soon be launching in Mamelodi and Siyabuswa. And negotiations are underway with businesses for the platform to start operating in Soweto and Vaal-based townships. But this is not the only good news for the business. “We have also signed a contract with a US-based company that manufactures electrical bikes, and we will be piloting those bikes by the end of the year,” Mahhumane told Vutivi News. “We also received a trading letter from Botswana, and so the aim is to expand to the Southern African Development Community countries.”
