SOUTH AFRICA– High-quality portioned coffee company and Nestle offshoot Nespresso South Africa have announced an exclusive partnership with prize-winning pastry chef Motheba Makheta.
The partnership will integrate coffee-inspired creations into its culinary experience to celebrate women’s remarkable contribution to the country’s culinary sector.
A significant part of the partnership will be a series of videos featuring the celebrity chef reminiscing on her journey, the challenges she has faced and victories as a female chef in a male-dominated sphere.
The campaign will also show her culinary expertise, especially her renowned skills of merging unique flavors in pastries.
The company revealed that the partnership reflects its dedication to sustainability and equity-building, focusing on promoting gender equality and fostering diversity.
It is part of Nespresso SA’s 2030 gender strategy to implement a gender-transformative approach to address gender inequality beyond the conventional corporate symptoms.
According to the company, this strategy should help to induce a more ambitious social change through the shared love of coffee.
Makheta was selected for the campaign because of her inspiring background. Her culinary journey started as a small child in Soweto, where her mother taught her the basics of cooking.
Today, she is the pastry sous chef at the Cape Grace Hotel in Cape Town.
Early this year, Makheta won the Eat Out Cacao Barry Dessert Award and travelled to the Cacao Barry® Or Noir™️ studio in France, where she created her own chocolate.
She was not only the first female African chef to achieve this feat but also the first African chef overall.
The celebrity chef acknowledged how her extraordinary journey has helped inspire many other women in the culinary space.
“Seeing other women in the culinary space pushing themselves has been such an amazing thing to see. You can really see a sense of self,” she said.
“You can picture yourself in a couple of years. Like, that could be me. It’s good to look up to people, but we shouldn’t emulate. That’s where we’ll fall short. We must always be authentically ourselves and stand in our power.”
Makheta hopes her journey and story through the campaign can continue to inspire other women seeking to break barriers in the culinary space.
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