KZN Leaders - The Community Heroes

Another trip with KZN Top Business had me on an outing to Pietermaritzburg on quite a chilly day. Durban has been quite the ‘hotspot’ of KZN for the past few weeks, so finally getting some of that beautiful chilly weather immediately made the day exciting. On our trip to Pietermaritzburg, we also had the chance to truly experience our review car as well, the Suzuki Grand Vitara (See the full review here). We made a quick stop at a coffee shop and got prepared for what would be another special day ahead. Our first stop was Capitol Caterers.

Once I entered Capitol Caterers, I immediately noticed how organised and pristine the entire place is. The place was completely stunning, with a gorgeous interior. What really shined though was the test kitchen which was truly a sight to behold. The modern kitchenware and appliances, beautiful interior decoration and the enthusiastic smiles of the students already made my day right then and there. With equipment set up, we were given a masterclass presentation by Merrill King, CEO of Capitol Caterers, that really let her culinary skills shine, and her dish looked really delicious. But when it comes to separating the art from the artist, looking at Merrill King reveals a truly great chef.

Merrill has an origin story that I least expected, being a farmer girl from the Midlands. Her early culinary journey started as a chef at the Royal Hotel. Merrill mentioned that she was put through intense training at this hotel. She was thrown into the deep end and put through the paces in order to become a high-class chef herself. However, Merrill mentions that Capitol Caterers aims to replicate that same amount of intense training for their students. This is done to fully prepare her students to get into any chef related role with ease, which is something that I appreciated. In fact, I had the opportunity to interview Merrill, and the way she talked about how she wants to help students succeed, even giving a chance to as many unemployed people as she could, truly resonated with me. Merrill exceeds in the kitchen, as well as at being a great person.

Our next stop was at Greenhill Laboratories. This would be my first time in a laboratory, so it was quite interesting for me. What lay inside the small office was a particular room that captured my interest. It had a feature wall with drawings of many different things such as animals and food items. According to the staff, everything on the wall was hand drawn, which I found fascinating. After some briefing, we took a short tour of the dairy labs.

These laboratories looked like something straight out of science fiction, however, this laboratory houses products for testing dairy products specifically. I learnt a lot about how food products are tested, especially from when farmers submit dairy products, all through to how they are tested in the laboratory. Times passed, and eventually we met the man of the hour: Dr Shaun Groenink.

Shaun first started his company back in March 2019 at the spare room of his home, before he eventually moved the business to the current location in Hilton. The business started after Shaun finished his long 11 years of studying biochemistry at university, earning his PhD in the process.  Shaun recalls his best piece of advice was that achievement is not the thesis you complete for the PhD, rather it is the journey; it is trial and error that earns you your PhD.

Shaun mentioned that Greenhill Laboratory commits to contributing back to the local community, and he highlighted this as a strong goal for the company. I found that to be quite inspiring when he talked about this aspect, in fact, community involvement is more important than on the surface. Even through major challenges such as Covid or the foot and mouth disease, Shaun encourages his staff by reminding them that what they do is for a good cause, that they save lives. To me, that highlights a leader that cares about his company, his objectives, and truly cares about their community. That by itself I found admirable about Dr Shaun and his team.

I have had the chance to meet many influential leaders; this time I met leaders that commit to helping the community. It felt refreshing to hear such high-profile voices talk about the importance of helping the community, and I do wish to see future business leaders follow a similar path.