Three South African entrepreneurs have begun running their own coffee kiosks inside Mr Price Home stores as part of a new programme from Mr Price Foundation. Matshidiso Mack, Noxolo Molefe and Zandile Tibane make up the first cohort of the Foundation Coffee Incubator, with kiosks in Cape Town, Durban and Mbombela.
The Mr Price Foundation programme puts each participant in charge of an operating kiosk rather than training them away from the business itself. Mack is running Foundation Coffee at Mr Price Home Diep River in Cape Town, Molefe is at Mr Price Home Hillcrest in Durban and Tibane is based at Mr Price Home Nelspruit Crossing in Mbombela. They handle the everyday work of the business, including customers, stock, administration and the financial side of running the kiosk.
None of the three is starting from zero. Mack works as a complaints specialist and founded coffee training and consulting business Bosire Brew Coffee Specialists as well as LaundryMack. Molefe is an agricultural advisor who already runs mobile coffee business Koffee Lam’, while Tibane works in HR and has a mobile bar business in Mbombela.
The incubator therefore gives them a different kind of exposure: a fixed retail location, an existing stream of shoppers and responsibility for keeping the business running. Mr Price Foundation says mentorship and business training continue alongside the trading experience.
Duduzile Mathabela, Entrepreneurship Development Programme Manager at Mr Price Foundation, says the organisation sees an opportunity for small businesses in South Africa’s growing coffee market. The Foundation cites Bonafide Research projections that the market will grow by more than 7% a year between 2024 and 2029.
“We want emerging entrepreneurs to be positioned to participate in that growth,” Mathabela said. She says the programme is intended to give participants experience of serving customers and understanding the commercial side of coffee while they develop businesses of their own.
The opportunity sits within a much harsher labour market. Statistics South Africa reported that 45.6% of South Africans aged 15 to 34 were not in employment, education or training in the first quarter of 2026. The release also cites Global Entrepreneurship Monitor research showing that 66% of South African women believe they have the capability to start a business, while 38% of the country’s small and medium enterprises are women-owned and led.
The figures point to a broader problem: South Africa and the rest of the continent can train people for economic opportunity without necessarily making it easy for them to enter and remain in the market. In this case, Mr Price Foundation is trying to shorten some of that distance by giving participants a place to trade and customers to sell to rather than stopping at training.
“What emerging entrepreneurs consistently lack is access to real customers, a quality product and the commercial infrastructure to grow a business,” Mathabela said. “These women are not entering a simulation; they are trading inside one of the country’s most recognisable retail environments.”
Foundation Coffee has been part of Mr Price Foundation since 2019. Its coffee is locally roasted in small batches by former South African Barista Champion Craig Charity of Lineage Coffee, and proceeds are used to support the Foundation’s youth education and skills development work.
Mack, Molefe and Tibane opened their kiosks on 3 August. Their participation forms part of Mr Price Foundation’s stated goal of helping 500,000 young South Africans achieve economic resilience by 2035.