“Always keep it simple and make the ordinary extraordinary’’

Boikokobetso Thubisi

3  March 2020

Joseph Ngaka Medupe is a businessman and a facilitator of Professional Cookery at Kathu NCR TVET College .He was born at Mafikeng and came to Kuruman in 2003 to pursue his career. Joseph holds N4 Certificate in Hospitality ad Catering Services from Taletso FET. He also has advance diplomas in Food and Beverage Services, Food Preparation and Culinary Arts at Food and Beverage Institute from FBI City and Guilts of London Institute at Bloemfontein. When asked why he chose to be a chef , Joseph said he went to college not knowing which course to enrol and found himself in a hospitality class because it was the only course with available space. 

Joseph registered a catering company called Appleseed Projects PTY Ltd in Kuruman to honour his career by showing off his abilities and share the knowledge with young people who want to be chefs as well as avoiding to be exploited. His dream is to produce many chefs from Northern Cape ‘I have realised that there are no chefs in our province and if they are some, they show casetheir profession in other provinces. His mission is to ensure that Kuruman does not have to outsource professional caterers and employ chefs from other provinces when events of high calibre hits the province. “We need to have professional hospitalists and hoteliers for when high standard restaurants and hotels are built in Kuruman’’ said Joseph.

At first Joseph struggled to secure clients “ I was struggling to get clients because people thought that professional chefs are expensive .Financial support  was a huge challenge as I would sometimes get business offers in government department and municipalities but not  be able to deliver due to lack of grocery money”. Said Joseph.

Having overcome the fear of failure, given that in a small town like Kuruman there is a lack of fine ingredients .Joseph has managed to overcome this fear by using what was available to him, showing of his art through social media platforms. Thus he hopes to have an all in one food preparation and hospitality establishment in 5 years to come. 

Joseph highlighted that for one to be a chef, one has to go to culinary school to learn about knife skills, food preparation skills, hygiene maintenance and food etc. he has encouraged young people who want to become professional chefs to go to school ,attend short courses of business management and culinary arts. “ it does not help to complain and make excuses .It is wise not to entertain negative thoughts with what you want to achieve ,fight procrastination and stay in your late’’