Afro's Chicken Shop is a homegrown food brand that has, until recently, been KwaZulu-Natal's best kept secret. We are a small start-up that is proudly local and passionate about the environment.

Afro's Chicken Shop was born and raised in KZN. Although the brand has been establishing shops in new provinces (Gauteng & Western Cape), our focus is still firmly on KZN as our largest source of revenue. This is not incidental - the company's growth strategy is heavily focused KZN and we have chosen to grow the brand in its starting market first before opening in new provinces.

Currently, the brand has 12 shops in KZN, with only five shops in other provinces. Within KZN, our primary region is the eThekwini municipality. Here, we are geographically dispersed and feature within multiple economic hubs. The Durban community are avid Afro's supporters and help to drive our new shop location decisions.

Local
One of Afro's core values is "Local". Although the idea can be applied to us being home grown in KZN, it has implications both wider and narrower than this scope. This is a value that drives decision making in almost all key aspects of our business.

Afro's has taken the decision to never buy chicken that is not locally raised - we do not support the dumping of product by other countries (harming our economy and reducing the ability of local farmers and the production chain to create or maintain jobs).

This has direct financial implications on our business - we are giving up margin by not buying the cheapest product that meets specifications. However, we believe that this is a critical stand to be made, and trust that the goodwill generated from good business practices such as this will outweigh the short-term opportunity cost in the long run.

To be local is to support KZN
We believe Afro's has contributed to our province economically not just through our general day-to-day business processes, but by adding value to the tourism sector as well. Our iconic beachfront container (the first ever permanent Afro's shop) has been featured in numerous international publications.

We have made it our status quo to employ young, usually unskilled, staff for our shops. We endeavour to provide meaningful employment for them and pay a fixed monthly salary that is not based on hours or shifts worked. We try hard to promote motivated individuals from within, and train accordingly to support this goal.
More often than not, our supply chain is made up of local KZN businesses as opposed to national established corporates. We have used the same local baker for almost the entirety of Afro's life. Our local fresh produce supplier obtains almost all his produce at the Durban market - we deal with some fluctuation in quality and price because we believe it is vital that the food we consume is produced where we live to protect our environment. Our key packaging is produced in KZN, not abroad.

Our coffee beans are roasted not only within KZN, but within one of our shops! We are proud to be partnered with the one-lady team taking the coffee roasting business by storm in KZN.

Outside of the supply chain, we also enjoy collaborations with other KZN institutions, brands and people. Amanda Laird Cherry, a local clothing designer, collaborated with us on a limited run of t-shirts inspired by Afro's iconography. We have a strong relationship with local Durban music - through support of great new artist Holly Rey; and our close relationship with Durban Youth Radio. This year we have become a tier three sponsor of Northwood Boy's High School and look forward to a long relationship with them.

Environment
Sustainable environmental practices are a key Afro's value and we see it as a journey. We won't be able to fix all the problems immediately, but we can take steps every day to reduce our impact on the environment. As a brand, we were among the first to take a decision to remove plastic straws entirely from our shops. Our next major step in the journey was to remove still and sparkling water packaged in plastic and replace it with a product packaged in glass.

The next largest contributor was our takeaway forks. We replaced these in 2018 with a more environmentally friendly corn-starch derivative that allows the forks to degrade naturally. The most recent step in our journey has been to replace fruit juices bottled in plastic to a juice bottled in tins. Finally, we also make use of digital vouchers in order to prevent needless printing waste.

Communities
The most important part of being local is support at a community level. This is where we focus our attention and we try to do as much as we can.

To this end we have been or are involved in community projects which focus on the less fortunate. As part of our community journey we are in the process of creating the Aweh Foundation, through which we will run all our community projects.