Agrifood lends helping hand

Retrenched and battling to find a new job, Tony Montez decided to take matters into his own hands.

In 2015 he set up Montez Quality Foods and started manufacturing pork crackling banting chips from his home.

Despite being a novice in the food industry, the product proved a huge hit and with orders streaming in, Montez reached out to the Agrifood Technology Station (ATS) for assistance.

Based at the CPUT Bellville Campus, the ATS assists small and medium food-related enterprises to improve their use of technology in a bid to grow their businesses.

Unable to produce large quantities of the product at his home, Montez approached the ATS, who as part of their wide range of services offers entrepreneurs the opportunity to make use of their state-of-the-art facilities and machinery to produce and package their products.

Montez says working with the ATS has been a lifesaver.

“At home I could only produce 1 kg at a time. Here at the ATS, I can produce up to 17 kg of pork crackling a day,” says Montez.

As a result, he has been able to rope in his wife Celeste, as well as employ two more staff members who assist with the production and packaging of the product.

Manager of ATS, Larry Dolley, says Montez is just one of the many examples of how the ATS is assisting start-up businesses.

Services range from assisting food and related companies in developing, enhancing and maintaining safe, efficient and cost-effective food production to assisting with labelling and shelf-life evaluation.

Dolley says they would like to extend their current facility to incorporate an incubator, which will allow entrepreneurs to meet with potential clients or business partners.

Small and medium enterprises who would like to make use of the services offered by the ATS, can contact them at: dolleyl@cput.ac.za