Painting The Town Red With Rooibos!

These entrepreneurs found new ways to take one of our national treasures to market – and turned their businesses into major brands, not just locally, but internationally.

- Marli Meyer & Kristen Birch

Business : Africans Extracts Rooibos

Owners : Rob Tiffin and Sarah Hetherington

Start-up Costs : 'The seed funding for African Extraxts Rooibos was about R250 000, because the business was already well established as a supplier of bath and body gift ranges.'

Turnover : 'The annua turnover is now about R60 million

Just one pinch of this could make 10 cups of strong rooibos,’ Rob Tiffin says, showing us a large barrel of amber-coloured rooibos powder used in all of the African Extracts Rooibos skincare products.

Back in 2000, Rob was approached to develop rooibos-based skin products for the European market by his UK agent. His company, Scentpac, had already been manufacturing various bath and body products, potpourri and toiletry gift sets. After a few years, he and his wife, Sarah Hetherington, former beauty editor of Femina magazine, decided to focus on the South African market and capitalise on existing knowledge of the health benefits of rooibos. And so African Extracts was born.

Today the brand has grown to become one of SA’s most popular skincare products, making appearances in stores such as DisChem, Clicks and all major supermarkets.

‘We wanted to develop an FMCG product,’ says Sarah – ‘a fast-moving consumer goods item that is easily accessible and, most importantly, affordable!’