South Africa’s leading distributor of top international brands, Sunpac has invested in local natural hair brand Nilotiqa. This comes after the distributor turned the spotlight onto growing black female innovators and entrepreneurs within the local hair care category to better align with South African consumers’ needs.
According to Sunpac, the small business founded by Thokozile Mangwiro aligns with the distributor’s growth strategy and ethos. CEO of Sunpac Shaun Laffer said the business has matured past the point of focusing on short term earnings and survival and is now at the point where the company is setting long-term plans and making key investments for growth.
“What is particularly exciting about Nilotiqa, is we can achieve our long-term goals and at the same time offer benefits and support to local entrepreneurs, which in turn accelerates their growth and development. We are thrilled to be partnering with and welcoming Thokozile Mangwiro into our family and have our full team working with her on this exciting brand and in support of local products and local manufacturing,” said Laffer.
Laffer said Thokozile Mangwiro is an early adopter who has paved much of the ground-breaking work required to open space in the category and that the brand is hot property with past financial constraints and economies of scale having limited Nilotiqa’s local market share; something which Sunpac will move quickly to address.
Mangwiro, who holds a master’s degree in Information and Communication Technology from the University of South Africa and a Bachelor’s degree in IT and Web Development, stumbled into entrepreneurship unintentionally. She said s a black woman with natural hair; she has faced the continuous social perception that natural hair is not considered ‘done’ when it is in its most natural state.
“Most hair care products that are aimed at black women offer benefits to change or alter the structure of our hair. I wanted to create a product that was specifically suited to my type of hair; a product that would not have to change the structure in order to “help” me maintain it. I wanted to be able to keep my hair in its healthiest form,” said Mangwiro.
Mangwiro left the corporate world and decided to set out and find her own answers to the age-old problem of dry hair. “Through my research we found that African hair is characterised by tight coils that grow closer to the scalp, which makes it a challenge for the hair’s natural oils to travel down the hair strands to their tips.
“The hair is therefore often dry due to the lack of these oils and therefore moisture. Nilotiqa is the solution that adds high quality oils and butters to help the hair maintain its natural moisture.”
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