Thebe Mochokoko, the CEO of TAP Foods, a food distribution and processing company based in Free
State, shares with us the impact Thebe’s support has had on business. Mr Mochochoko is one of the
agroprocessors that Thebe Investment Corporation (TIC) supported to be included in the procurement
and value-chain of one of its subsidiaries, COMPASS Group (now known as EMPACT Group).
Besides supplying Empact group, one of Thebe’s subsidiary, TAP Foods is contributing to job creation
in the community. TIC assisted this business with a secured market, a springboard for the business to
grow, a much-needed support to farmers. TIC has played that catalytic role for TAP Foods, this is a role
TIC hopes to play in uplifting other smaller companies to grow their businesses, contributing to
transformation in the relevant sectors.
What inspired you to get into Farming? Has farming always been your passion?
My father an Agricultural/Civil Engineer was my main inspiration in my decision to become involved with
agriculture. When I was young barely 10 years old my main duties and chores were on the farm. My
weekends and holidays consisted of a lot of farming experience. That is where I learnt to appreciate the
planting and growing of plants and rearing of livestock.
Tell us more about your farming enterprise.
TAP Foods is in the foodservice business as a Food Distribution and processor. At the moment we
primarily focus on vegetable commodities and to a lesser extent other dry goods. We supply hospitals,
schools, restaurants and prisons. We also do primary production on the farm which assists with
supplementing the capacity for required commodities and by this improves our profit margins since it’s
our own produce. We would actually like to expand this so that it can also be a training farm for
students coming from the universities and colleges that require experiential training (on the job training).
What’s the outlook for your business going forward?
There are current plans to scale the business by improving our business processes and adding the
requisite systems in place. There are human resource requirements and technology required to improve
the efficiency of TAP Food. Vegetables have a lean profit-margin and therefore in order to hedge
business risk and also create more opportunities for local economic development in all its facets we do
indeed have plans to expand the business both on the production and on the agro-processing sides.
The plan is to upgrade our production capacity both on the field and in the processing facility by
introducing effective mechanization. In addition, the plan is to introduce other lucrative commodities
such as eggs and those with greater profit margins like Red Meat on TAP Food’s distribution portfolio.
What role has TIC played in assisting your business?
We started development discussions with the Thebe Foundation in 2014 and subsequent to those
discussions the company assisted us with securing a vegetable supply contract with Empact Group,
one of Thebe’s subsidiaries. Under Empact Group there are a number of facilities that TAP Food is
contracted to supply. This was TAP Food’s breakthrough contract and still remains one of our main
contracts and foundational pillar of our business. From this business TAP Food has been able to build
an agro-processing facility according to best practice standards and is currently in the process of
HACCP compliance certification. Our clients now vary from prisons, schools, hospitals and private
households.
We need more markets that are stable and sustainable like the Empact Group service contract is with
us. We also have to diversify our product supply portfolio with commodities with better profit margins.
Capital is a big challenge especially with respect to scaling the business but we are hopeful and with
the support TIC has afforded us through their procurement programme, the future can only look
brighter, not only for the business but also for the many in our community who look up to us for jobs and
inspiration to also start their own businesses.
