Female & Guardian | Free State Businesswoman’s Butternut Coffee A Bold New Brew

When Free State entrepreneur Chantelle de Bruyn’s grandfather had to give up coffee for health reasons, she brewed a new business idea and invented a global first — organic “coffee” made from the humble butternut.

De Bruyn, who embarked on several business ventures in Bloemspruit, just outside Bloemfontein, before launching Buttercup Farmhouse, a small agro-processing business that produces patented butternut coffee, said it made perfect sense to select the butternut as the base ingredient for the hot drink.

She initially took courses in entrepreneurial studies at the University of Johannesburg and the MSC Business College and went on to open a small catering business, simply because she saw other entrepreneurs prospering in this field.

“It was an epic failure. I lasted a few months and then I went over into my second business, which was manufacturing gumboots. But I did not complete that because we were unable to get funding. I then started backyard gardening, which was more of a fun community project, as there was no selling and we gave a lot away to charity,” she said.

This was after she had attended a provincial department of agriculture seminar on farming where she was selected to facilitate the training of young women on a community gardening project.

She launched a not-for-profit organisation called Ananela Project (“appreciation” in Sesotho) and her passion for farming — and eventually product development — began to flourish.

Starting with backyard gardening and small-scale crop production, butternut soon emerged as a consistent star among her harvests, which included tomatoes and potatoes.

“We then had a challenge at home when my grandfather was diagnosed with kidney and liver disease and doctors told him he could no longer drink coffee, which he loved,” she said.

It was not a simple matter of switching to caffeine-free coffee because this sometimes still contained small amounts of the stimulant.

“First, we’re big on coffee at home. Number two, we are big on pumpkin and butternut as well as a family. So, I just thought, ‘Why not create something for him that he’s able to have?’ And that’s when I went further into developing the product for him.

“The doctors were actually the ones to find that there could be a market, for not only him, but for many others who can’t have caffeine,” she said.

But, of all vegetables, why butternut, even if it was a firm family favourite at dinner?

“Because we’ve planted butternut all our lives, and I know the product very well, and what nutrients it contains. And, I want to be honest with you, butternut and coffee did not make sense in the beginning, but I just thought, ‘Why not butternut?’”

De Bruyn did several short biochemistry courses online and got to work, eventually connecting with the University of the Free State’s Food Science Lab, where staff and students helped her to develop her butternut coffee product.

She registered the business in 2019, but it took three long years of laboratory work and consumer tests — students at the university sampled, analysed and rated the product — until it tasted like coffee.

“We did our testing, our nutritional analysis through the South African Bureau of Standards, but before that happened, we also had to patent the business, because now we did not want to risk anyone taking the idea or risk them maybe using the same concept that we have,” De Bruyn said.

She went on to launch Buttercup Farmhouse Coffee, sourcing her ingredients from independent growers and outsourcing manufacturing to a company in Johannesburg.

She secured space in the stores of national retailer Food Lover’s Market in September 2024, followed by Makro, and she is considering other supermarket chains and businesses in the hospitality sector.

“We’re having a chat with a few hospitality businesses who are loving the fact that they can use our coffee powder in speciality dishes like puddings and ice creams,” she said.

“We are still finding a way to best market the product. We are getting a strategy team on board, but the reception has been very good, although slow because we are still struggling with our capacity as a business. 

“We can’t meet the demand that buyers and the retailers are looking for, so we’re really taking it slow,” De Bruyn said.If the reception her business received at the recent G20Agricultural Working Group in Durban last week, where she had an exhibition stand, is anything to go by — her products were sold out before the end of the two day event — she is turning heads and tastes to organic butternut coffee as a viable alternative to the traditional brew.