Business simplified {{ FIRSTNAME | there }}? By day, he’s a university lecturer, but did you know that by night Potchefstroom local Herman Blackie helps SA companies build their spreadsheets and WhatsApp workarounds into proper systems?

He recently built a WhatsApp-based boardroom booking system for the Vida e Caffè down the road. Man, SA’s got the coolest people doing the coolest things…

In This Open Letter

When we first featured Refreshi in May '25, they were in 5 Stellenbosch stores – now, they're in 700+ stores and have paid their partners about R16m to date…

Just 17 months ago, Jakob Holbak was pitching a way for stores to sell their end-of-day surplus food as discounted surprise bags. Now, Refreshi is in 700+ stores across Cape Town, Joburg, Pretoria, Durban, Gqeberha, George and Mossel Bay, including:

There's even a Somerset butcher selling game meat bags on Mondays, plus Fairview cheese and wine farms clearing extra stock.

How it works: You pay in the app during the day, select a category (bakery or fruit and veg) and collect a "surprise" bag of goodies at closing (not a gimmick, stores literally can't predict what'll be left on the shelf). The verdict so far from 200k registered users is that it's always good stuff.

It's free for stores to join, and Refreshi takes a small cut per bag sold. They've done just over 170k bags so far this year, and the team is 7 people, still working out of DinePlan's offices, and the founders have never raised outside money.

Refreshi in a user's own words…

The 4 big lessons Jakob took from building

1. How you tell the story matters: Students told Refreshi nobody wants to buy "waste," so they sharpened the consumer-facing language to affordable meals from surplus food. Same bag, same food, very different perception to the public.

2. In SA, trust is built face to face: Cold emails and calls to busy store owners who'd never heard of Refreshi didn't work. Walking in and talking to them did.

3. Let big names and customers do the talking: Getting Bootlegger and Krispy Kreme on board brought scale and awareness. Then customers started posting their unboxings on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok without being asked.

4. Copy what works, and pick partners who fill your gaps: Find a big problem another country has already solved (the team were inspired by Danish app Too Good To Go), and don't wait for the perfect time to launch. Just team up with honest people who bring the skills you lack. If you're the sales person, find the tech and finance people.

What's next for Refreshi

Another major retailer and coffee group is piloting the app now and a big hotel group pilot is lined up. Refreshi is also releasing a case study with the Consumer Goods Council of South Africa soon.

So we're watching this space…

Have your say…

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