Yococo serves scoops of love

For the past 13 years, the Mail & Guardian has featured 200 prominent young South Africans, on course to touch the world with their greatness. This year’s business and entrepreneurship category featured Sinenhlanhla Ndlela, owner and founder of Yococo dairy-free ice cream.

Starting the brand with little to no knowledge about ice cream, Sinenhlanhla said her aim was to show people that it was possible to have good dessert that doesn’t harm the environment and is good for the body and the soul – by having a scoop of Yococo a day you reduce your carbon footprint.

“There’s this weird misconception abiut when you grow up you stop having fun. I wanted to show that you can be an adult and still have fun and at the same time still do something good for the environment,” Sinenhlanhla said.

Yococo is centred on fun and love and is much more an experience rather than just another scoop of ice cream. This is evident in Sinenhlanhla’s hands on approach to the brand where she taught herself everything about the industry, how to make the ice cream, how to manufacture it, and how to distribute it without any business background.

“I started feeling unfulfilled in my everyday life, waking up and just being another person going to work. I just wanted something I’m going to enjoy doing but that’s also going to be making an impact. It’s just basically finding my purpose which is to serve love,” she said.

Today, Yococo is thriving as Sinenhlanhla supplies Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg. With a special selling point as a dairy-free ice cream, she said the journey has been good, exciting and challenging.

“It feels like a dream sometimes because I look back and so many things have happened and so many things still need to happen. It’s crazy to me that I’m actually building something, which is what I’ve always wanted to do,” Sinenhlanhla said.

The women in her family inspired her with their strength and determination. She is also inspired by her love of ice cream and her vision for the future. Sinenhlanhla said she plans to run the biggest and most fun ice cream brand in South Africa and hopes to expand her market into Germany in the future. She said she also wants to use her steady growth to help support her team and to empower more women.

“Eventually, I want to take my company outside the country and employ more people, I just want to do more things that help the environment,” she said.