The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube, Online News Editor
OVER 100 women in Lupane have embarked in Chilli farming, after a partnership between the Lupane Women’s Centre and the Lupane Veggie Guys ensured that they get a ready market for their harvest.
Lupane Veggie Guys, a local company in the Matabeleland North provincial capital, first made headlines in 2020, when it introduced their trademark one-of-a-kind chilli sauce and later a wide range of products that include juices, vinegar, pastes and purified water, which triggered economic empowerment for rural communities through a value chain.
With their brand continuing to grow, the company has since partnered the Lupane Women’s Centre where they sourced chilli seeds for over 100 women, so as to ensure that they get a ready supply of the chilli to enable them in the production of their sauce.
“One of the most difficult projects to work on was the commercialisation of our chilli value chain. At one instance we had the worst tasting chilli sauce. It took us about two years to get the recipe right together with the team. After getting the recipe right, we then had a shortage of chilli. We then discussed the idea with the Lupane Women’s Centre to have 100 women in the project. We discussed the idea with Tonny Beloved who is with SeedCo, who then supplied seed to the 100 women. The chilli has started trickling in and we are buying from the 100 women. It is a win for our impoverished communities in Lupane,” said the company’s production manager, Mr Cliff Mbiba.
He revealed that, as they continued to grow and their market also expands, they expected more communities to join the initiative including communities in Gokwe and Nkayi.
“We are looking at growing the project beyond Lupane. What pleases us, is that our market is expanding on a daily basis, so it means we need more chilli, this thus meaning we will need more farmers to supply us with the chilli, this thus directly creating a market for more chilli farmers within our communities. Our thrust is to empower our communities, so that when we speak of the success of the Lupane Veggie Guys, we also speak on the empowerment of our rural communities,” said Mr Mbiba.
The production manager said to date they were developing five varieties of the chilli sauce, the original, Ndiya ndiya, Enhle chilli sauce, sweet chilli sauce and the twalumba sauce.
“Our original chilli sauce is made from sun drying chilli in the intense Lupane sun and then fermenting the chilli. It is a great sauce to accompany our free range grass fed beef. Ndiya Ndiya is a mixture of herbs and can take you straight to the streets of Mumbai in India. It’s full of flavour and aroma and excellent for our slow cooked goat meat.
“Enhle Chilli Sauce is a rich aromatic chilli sauce with an undertone of lemon. It is our lemon and herb sauce and combines well with our indigenous chickens for an extraordinary culinary experience. In our Sweet Chilli Sauce, we add sweetness to heat. The sweetness comes from natural sweeteners from the forests in Lupane. It is a great dip for hand foods while Twalumba sauce was designed with the Tonga people (Zambezi Valley) in mind. It takes the aromatic and musty flavours of Binga herbs and turns them into a chilli sauce. Great with dried fish,” said Mr Mbiba.
