Seriously. Think sweet and sticky and sublime and
the finest local nougat has to be Wedgewood
Words Andrea Abbott Pictures supplied
Melt
in your
Mouth
Wedgewood Nougat / local flavours
Y
ou know what it’s like; dinner
guests are about to arrive and the
impressive pudding you planned turns into
an unmitigated flop. “Overripe Brie cheese.”
That’s how Gilly Walters of Wedgewood described her
first batch of homemade nougat. “It ran off the plate.”
Many would have ditched the idea, but Gilly
persevered. Her husband, Taffy, had fallen seriously ill
and they’d had to sell Touchwood Flower Farm and
find another way to pay the bills. A meeting with
an aspiring young classical pianist, the now famous
Christopher Duigan, led to Gilly and Taffy hosting
musical dinner soirées in their home in the KZN
Midlands. Hence the nougat, made according to
an old French recipe and served as dessert.
In time, Gilly perfected the tricky process. Fame
spread; Gilly’s nougat was increasingly in demand
and she and Taffy were increasingly run off their feet.
Production overflowed from the kitchen into the
double garage. Today, the nougat is still handmade
– about 1½ tons a day, 20 per cent of which is
exported to Japan, Russia, Germany and the UK –
but it all happens in a purpose-built kitchen on
a 30 hectare farm in Merrivale near Howick,
a stone’s throw from Touchwood.
“In a sense, we’ve come home,” says sales and
marketing manager, Paul Walters. He and his brothers
Jon and Steve are now at the helm of the business,
their parents still involved to a degree but also taking
time to enjoy some hard-earned leisure.
Paul recalls the early days when a batch mixed
in his mum’s Kenwood Chef yielded about twenty
slabs of nougat. Each had to be cut by hand –
a sticky and frustrating job if ever there was one.
And while state-of-the-art equipment has made
that task a lot easier, and facilitated innovations like
Race Food (energy bars for athletes) and Belgian
chocolate-coated nougat bars (calm down all
you chocoholics…), Gilly’s original recipe and her
obsession with quality remain at the heart of
a family enterprise that has embraced a growing
new movement in the way business is done.
“Business for business sake is not sustainable,”
says Paul. We are sitting at the enormous circular
breakfast table where the staff (most of them
family) gather to share ideas and discuss the
daily running of Wedgewood. Paul explains that
businesses are changing to become custodians of
people, the community, and the environment.
“A business must be meaningful beyond making
countrylife.co.za
* One and
a half tons of
nougat is made
by hand every
day.
* The new
custom-built
factory is
situated on a
30 hectare farm
near Howick
in the KZN
Midlands.
* Founder of
Wedgewood
Nougat, Gilly
Walters, and
production
supervisor,
Anna Mpungose.
March 2013
107
* Nougat
Dynasty. The
extended
Walters Family.
Howick
Durban
KwaZulu-Natal
profit. At Wedgewood, we’re just starting out
on that path. We’re not perfect by any means, but
we are committed to making a difference.” The
commitment is plain to see. To begin with, most
of the 50-strong staff is from nearby Mpophomeni,
a rural community with a 60 per cent unemployment
rate and where AIDS afflicts half the population.
Aside from creating sustainable employment
within the community, Wedgewood materially
and financially supports Ethembeni, a non-profit
organisation that cares for sick and vulnerable
children and adults in the area.
On the environmental front, everything left over
from the nougat production is either recycled or
composted. That includes the shells of 100 000 eggs
cracked by hand every month. Even sugar-laden
waste water that would destroy important microbes
if released into the septic tank, is channelled onto
the compost heap. The compost is destined for
a planned organic vegetable garden, the veggies to
be served in the staff canteen, and also sold on site.
Restoring biodiversity is high on the agenda.
When the farm was bought, large stands of invasive
alien trees had sucked the life out of a stream. The
trees have been eradicated and the stream has been
revived. “We’ll soon be self-sufficient with our water
needs,” says Paul.
Another project converts used, very poisonouslooking vegetable oil sourced from fast food outlets
into bio-diesel. “We call it Jon’s Jungle Juice." That’s
in honour of eldest brother, Jon, who pioneered the
bio-diesel plant, experiencing some close shaves in the
process. “A couple of interesting moments resulted
in singed eyebrows and scorched arms." But, as Paul
says, the diesel is "good stuff". It emits 70 per cent less
carbon than regular diesel and is used to heat water,
fire the ovens that bake Angel Nougat Biscuits, power
Old Queen the antique nut roaster, and operate
generators during Eskom power failures. The few
by-products from the oil to diesel conversion are
biodegradable and also end up on the ever-expanding
compost heap.
So while nougat is still at the core, Wedgewood is
breaking new ground. “Our overall goal is for
a self-sustaining, simple and enjoyable, rural lifestyle
here." Within that context, several new developments
are on the cards. These include photovoltaic power
generation, and introducing free-range chickens and
sheep to the farm’s existing livestock – a small herd
of cattle. There’s also talk of establishing bike trails on
the farm.
It’s a feel-good success story few could have
predicted. “If anyone had an inkling that this is
where we’d be today, they certainly didn’t tell us."
And to think it all began with a flop. There’s a lesson
in that. n
FOOTNOTES
Map reference D8
see inside back cover
Understandably, the recipe for Wedgewood is a closely
guarded secret. Ingredients include almonds imported from
California, unadulterated honey sourced directly from small
local apiaries, macadamia nuts from the KZN South Coast
and Mpumalanga, cranberries from Canada, chocolate from
Belgium. The wafer paper is from the Netherlands.
n A percentage from the sale of each gift box is donated
to the Mphophomeni Community. Similarly, conservation
projects receive a donation for each pack of Race Food
(energy bars for athletes) sold.
n For more information visit www.wedgewoodnougat.co.za
and www.racefood.co.za, www.ethembeni.co.za
n
108
March 2013
countrylife.co.za