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Malcolm Green and his son Ricardo are the owners of La RicMal Wines.
They started their wine business in 2007 and currently trade under the labels Lerato Wine and La RicMal Supreme.
Their wines are produced from predominantly bush vines growing in the Darling area. They have also successfully applied for land, which the Department of Land Reform and Agriculture awarded to them in 2016.
Their farm is off the Bottelary Road near Stellenbosch and they hope to sell wine from their own farm by 2021.
Green says the business greatly benefits from its partnership with the Shoprite Group, which sees it supplying to the group's supermarkets across Africa. Since becoming a Shoprite supplier, their business has grown significantly, and Shoprite constitutes 30% of their overall business and some 10% of their export business.
"One can apply to government for land if you have your own brand and a market. Since Shoprite helped us grow markets and volumes, government was willing to assist us, so these days Ricardo spends a lot of time on the farm and we look forward to producing and bottling our own wine in the near future," says Green.
"We're a family-owned wine producing, marketing and promoting company and through our partnership with Shoprite our wines are available in eleven African countries, apart from South Africa. We are building a legacy - not just selling wine."
Green started out in the recycling business where he bought used wine bottles, cleaned them and resold them to wine producers. Ricardo wanted to walk a different business path, which initially his father was not that enthusiastic about it.
"I owned four factories in the Western Cape and two in Gauteng. My company had won numerous awards for, amongst others, job creation, so I was very happy with my achievements," says Green.
"Ricardo was relentless and eventually convinced me to join him in this new venture, so here I am today not able to imagine myself doing anything else."
Green says an entrepreneur has to be on top of his or her game at all times. In his view, it is very important for small enterprises to align with a corporate's systems and processes. Failing to do so can be one of the biggest barriers to market entry.
