Nyaradzo Dhliwayo is a one woman evangelist on healthy lifestyle choices. She is the vegan loving adventist, a one woman revolutionary fighting a war on obesity and food related health issues, all from the humble beginnings of one smoothie bar into a formidable seven outlet, award winning, food empire that is changing lifestyles, inspiring the woke and sustaining rural livelihoods.
What started as a passionate love to offer healthy food choices for her family has turned out to be a full blown revolution in which she commands a small force within Harare that is determined to change the way the country views food and healthy lifestyle choices through her restaurant, Yanaya.
When I first met Nyaradzo, I was keen to promote her then, sole outlet located at Joina City on my radio show in 2020. It never took off because of Covid and she closed for sometime and I was worried on how her business would survive since it had just opened. I imagined the rent she was paying at Joina City, considered prime Real Estate in the CBD and I could not see how she would survive. Like many businesses during this time, it was almost easy to close down than survive. The latter meant you had to be ingenious to survive. andsince no-one knew when it would all end, you had to think fast and hard to see real profit coming in.
I checked up on her business through her fine tuned social media platforms and marvelled at how she quickly moved onto the online space, receiving orders and delivering, just to stay afloat. I was convinced that there was more to just being in love with opening up a restaurant but a desire to see it prevail.
Fat forward to 2021, after what seemed like a poor year for entrepreneurs and business owners, Yanaya has turned one outlet into seven and has picked up awards for her ingenuity and still continues to lead the revolution. In so doing, she is hell bent on discovering Zimbabwe's culinary prowess by incorporating authentic Zimbabwean flavours and produce into her dishes.
Her recent smoothie flavours of Masawu, Nyi and Tsubvu are stirring up a storm in what has been largely been regarded a European drink but the best part is that the freshly picked produce is done by rural women, her own way of supporting the family leaders and their next generation of stars and entrepreneurs.
Describing her revolution as "The work of God", Nyaradzo, became a vegan herself as a way of showing a friend support who had been medically advised to seek healthy food choices to aid in healing. Since then she has not looked back and has gone to influence many others who have been seeking Banting and Vegan food choices in the City but could not find any outlet that offered such an option.
I invited Nyaradzo to #THE6AMCLUB #WAKEUPAFRICA Twitter Space to learn more about her journey and work in the city and one thing is for certain. She is just inspiring.
Nothing makes business sense, especially in a country ravaged by the pandemic, with, restricted outdoor movements, unstable economy and little education and emphasis on health food choices and yet she managed to grown seven fold. Not to mention that she studied Design and Photography at Stellenbosch University, a skill she says she still uses in her business daily and could be the reason for the mouth watering imagery on Yanaya's online platforms.
"It blew up on me" she exclaims before kindly giving away three listeners a chance to try out her new range of smoothies. Want to hear the conversation in full, click the picture below.
