Their beginning is captured in the words of Mr F. Scott Fitzgerald: "and so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer".
In a recent interview, Josh and Adam, the founders of the quirky brand Granadilla Swim, told us that their greatest ambition was to deliver to the world a brand that captured the essence of summer in South Africa.
"Ultimately we just want to make a product that represents the lekker feeling a Cape Town summer gives us and sell it across the world"
To gain exposure in the market, they strategically came up with a guerrilla marketing campaign implemented via social media and physically selling Granadilla Lollies on Clifton Beach, Cape Town.
But, this dynamite duo is not just focused on selling their apparel- they are committed to making a difference beyond the beach:
"Being conscious of our privilege and of our country, we have committed 5% of profits to charitable causes. To be honest, we have far exceeded that. We have also combined marketing and charitable initiatives so that they make business sense and are sustainable going forward. For example, we have sponsored the Granadilla Lolly sellers with shorts, and transport to / from the beach. We have also taken baby steps towards setting up a Granadilla Swimming Academy. We source many of our product inputs from within South Africa, or Africa generally, and our product is 100% made in South Africa. We also endeavour to use our brand to fly the South African flag around the world. There is such incredible creativity and world class product design happening locally and we want to make sure the global markets recognise and acknowledge South Africa for it. Sustainability is a word we don't take lightly. For us as entrepreneurs we interpret sustainability in terms of the regeneration and sharing of opportunity. The old adage of teaching a man to fish is a mantra we live by at Granadilla. An example is our relationship with the ice cream venders on Clifton. Instead of donating our profits directly to them we broke down their business model and helped them with efficiencies to ensure they could make longer lasting use of the finance we helped them with. Specifically, we looked at their transport costs and helped them bring them down by over 50% with a lift scheme."
As aforementioned, their trunks are all manufactured locally in South Africa, and so their faith is entrenched in the prosperity of the multi- cultural, multi-talented rainbow nation as vibrant with new opportunities as a fresh summer's day.
In a recent interview with the European House of Ambrosetti, Kofi Annan stated that "Africa is too big to fail". Adam and Josh agree with this statement and are conscious of the fact that amidst socio- economic instability of Africa, their project is one of many beacons of hope for the rapidly developing middle class.
"We certainly have idealistic ideas about how BRILLIANT this country could be and I suppose we want to make every effort to contributing towards that goal. As mentioned above we are going to use Granadilla as an icon to showcase how brilliant South Africa is and we explore other young entrepreneurs to do the same. Make products, make brilliant products and then sell them all over the world, show the world what South Africans can do."
Josh and Adam have, through the establishment of their Granadilla Swimwear Company, demonstrated for entrepreneurs and artists that any dream can be achieved with a commitment to sustainability, for it is as easy as "beginning over again with the summer."
Photo by Aubrey Ndiweni (@apetownshenanigans)
