Local is lekker at Delicious

As the sun set on the Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit on Friday, hundreds of people geared up for this weekend's DStv Delicious International Food and Music Festival.  

TimesLIVE spent the afternoon at Kyalami for a sneak peek at what goes into putting together the event and some proudly South African products that will be available. From bags, socks, modogo (tripe), ginger beer and vegan burgers, festival goers will be transported into a wonderland of gastronomic delights and musical enchantment.  

The moment Arrested Development started its sound check, the band's hit song Mr Wendal drowned out the cacophony of clanging scaffolding, humming generators and crates of beverages being set up.  

While the festival trended for all the wrong reasons last year due to ticketing issues, Mpho Nkadimeng of Massive Management, the owners of the event, has promised festival goers a better experience.

“To make sure people have a pleasant experience we’ve reduced capacity from 25,000 to 20,000. We’ve included more food traders to avoid queues and we’ve increased the bar frontage. The point is not to fill it up to capacity, we want people to come and enjoy the festival experience. We probably have every single generator in the country so we won’t be affected by load-shedding,” Nkadimeng said before an Eskom announcement that blackouts have been suspended for the long weekend.  

For Happy Ngidi of Proudly SA, the festival is about more than just a good time, with the organisation recognising the event as a job creation activity.  

“A big part of our work is providing access to the market, if people don’t have access to sell their products to the market, it defeats the purpose. To many people this is a festival and it’s fun. For us it’s about so much more. It’s about the access to the market which is a big deal for small businesses,” Ngidi said.   

Here are the five Proudly South African stalls to look out for:  

Yamama Gemmer: homemade ginger beer just like your granny made it. Inspired by their mother’s famous gemmer recipe, Mosibudi Makgato and her sister left their corporate jobs to venture into making the refreshing juice.

African Mama’s Judith Phetheni makes baskets and jewellery.  

Vulithuba Sangoni of The 100 Icon’s Journey sells active gear, from hats to socks.

Nombuso Khanyile of Afrikan Passion Designs sells leather handbags.  

Sue Gajathar of The Vegan Chef  makes a delicious southern fried chicken burger with a spicy sauce.