#WIB – Q&A With Samantha Moleta Co-Owner & Founder Of The Refillery
1. Can you please tell us more about your business?
A. The Refillery is a PLATIC-FREE grocery store that focuses on products that are chemical free, non-GMO or no pesticides, right from cleaning products, personal care to our largest range being dry goods and pantry staples, helping customers live a less waste lifestyle. The store is a weigh & Pay concept where you pay only for what you scoop. You can buy as little or as much as you want. You can literally buy 1 bayleaf for the recipe you’re making tonight or 10kgs of chocolate when those cravings hit.
You are allowed to bring your own containers which we weigh on arrival [in order to tare at the end so you only pay for the weight of what you have scooped], you can also purchase a range of our glass storage containers or make use of our free recycled brown paper bags to buy what you need and decant at home in your own pantry.
It’s a feel good shopping experience that allows you to leave a lighter foot print on the planet with something that is part of our daily lives – Grocery shopping.
2. When, how and why did you start your business?
A. We started The Refillery in December 2018, opening our online website in January 2019 and then our first bricks and mortar branch in Cedar Square in March that year. A whirlwind experience with many learning curves for a couple who was very very new to Retail. My husband Dom and I started the Refillery after spending a lot of our time together in the yachting industry working on yachts and seeing the world from the outside looking in and often just travelling through HUGE patches of garbage or having to clean the private beaches before our guests went to visit them.
It was a hard reality being young and seeing the damage humans can cause by being mindless about waste. After we had our second child, Stevie, we were living in New Zealand and took part in ‘Plastic Free July’ which is common worldwide but was new to us. So we gave up plastic straws and cutlery, plastic bottles and coffee cups, plastic wrap and take away containers and thought if we could tackle that as a family of four, we could do it long term. We managed it and enjoyed the new reusable swaps we made so I researched ‘What more’ could we do.
Most of our single use plastic waste comes from your day to day trip to the grocery store and we decided to take what we had seen in our travels of Zero Waste stores, adapt it to what we thought South Africans would like and need and created The Refillery. We sold our house, packed up the kids, the cats and moved back to South Africa and opening our store.
3. What is your role in the business?
A. My husband and I own and run the business and because we are small we do a bit of everything and delegate to our strengths and weaknesses. I focus on the operations side, store experience as well as the marketing and social media of the business. There are often days we open and run a store, or help with cleaning, decanting and very often we are the delivery crew for our stock 😉 I often say to our team, I’m the delivery-gal!
4. Where did you study and what did you study?
A. I Studied at University of Johannesburg, BA Marketing Communications.
5. How did you finance your business?
A. We self funded The Refillery by selling our home and putting everything we had into it. Getting finance is incredibly difficult and something we still haven’t been able to achieve with banks as they generally put up so much red tape it’s impossible. We had a private investor who helped us start our second branch and then the further 2 stores we self funded through the growth of the business itself. We hope to get funding to expand and grow in the future as well as take on strategic partners that compliment our skills and the ethos of The Refillery.
6. Describe your average workday, if such a thing exists.
A. Definitely no average work day especially thanks to COVID. Every day brings something new with load shedding, riots, you name it. But we generally are up early with the kids for school, then head to gym for some mental stability, then head to a branch each to check on the store, arrange stock for the week for all branches, check in with our teams and get stuck into some of the back of house work needed. I often head to another branch to check on stock, and the overall store and then fetch our small humans from school. Between us we swap being at home after school with the kids and working from home or staying at a branch for the rest of the day.
Throw in some kids after school activities, making some delicious food for us and the kids, and I’m a huge foodie so love making something new and exciting – even if the kids just want noodles, I’m adding some flair into that! Once the kids are asleep we often have to tackle more work which we do together while watching a favourite series in the background together – often Survivor [We are super-fans, just waiting for them to bring out a ‘Couples-Survivor’. Then early-ish to bed if I can and I always try to read a bit of a book before bed to take my mind away from the day.
7. How do you balance your home life and your work life?
A. This is my on-going struggle and something I choose to work on daily. Running your own business is hard enough without trying to squeeze in some ‘you-time’ but I find it’s so important to at least try. Not something I have mastered yet but we try squeeze in a coffee together or a round of golf to really switch off. When we don’t have to work we enjoy our weekends with our friends or at home in the garden with the kids, some sunshine and a braai. If you ever bump into us while the kids are on school holidays then you’ll meet my kids too as they come with us to work and often have them stamping some bags as well.
8. What drives you and inspires you?
A. I’m driven by a few things I guess, I love what I do and that our business not only is something new but also something that has a positive impact on the planet. But also something that my children can be proud of us for doing. It’s passion meets business which I love. I am also driven by the lifestyle of being an entrepreneur – or perhaps the adrenalin. Yes it’s incredibly difficult but it fuels a fire in me to do better, do more and enjoy the perks that come with it; spending time with my kids, enjoying working with my husband daily and choosing/creating the path I want to live.
It does have it’s downfalls sure but I choose to focus on the good and the positive, and always have in life so the down side doesn’t out weigh the good for me. I’d appreciate the world to stop throwing every curve ball imaginable at us like a global pandemic, rioting, global recession – the list goes on. But it has definitely made me a more dynamic person, pivoting where needed, grafting hard no matter what and remembering to find the good in everything.
9. Where and when do you have your best ideas?
A. I find my best idea’s come when I’m eating great food with delicious wine, sounds ridiculous but every time Dom and I have a lunch together it turns into a brainstorming session of note. We have a gorgeous Greek restaurant by my house called Nostimos and we get tapas, the kids play and paint and we get to chat, unwind and enjoy ourselves, and every time I find the idea’s flowing. We now call it our ‘de-brief Tapas’.
10. Where and how do you market/advertise your business for sales leads?
A. We make use of social media mostly as our budget doesn’t allow for enough marketing spend to make an impact, so we do what we can in the social media space for this but also put a lot of time and effort into the store experience itself, and our team so that people who shop with us will be able to create awareness for us from their own personal experience. You can’t beat word of mouth as it’s the truest form of advertising in my opinion. I would love to have a budget one day for sufficient marketing but as a start up you do what you can with what you have and you make it work for you.
11. What is next for your business?
We want to grow to Cape Town and KZN, and hopefully we can find the right partners for this as well as continue to offer unique product ranges and staying one step of the game. Being a unique in-store experience but also a useful, quick online delivery service to keep up with the lives of busy people these days. Time is valuable and we hope to enhance our position in the market by offering more to our customers with regards to options.
12. What advice would you give to female entrepreneurs hoping to start their own business?
A. I guess the best advice would be is to START. If it’s something you’re passionate about, researched it, find enough information about what you want to do, why you want to do it and you have a rough idea of the HOW, then just DO IT! We learn all the lessons along the way, they are often lessons you could be told but you need to go through them to learn them properly. “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing with STYLE”. You will find a million reasons why your business won’t work. But hold onto why it will and never be afraid or too proud to admit you were wrong or you need help. There is a reason we all have our strengths and weaknesses, work to the best of you!
Short Bio:
Samantha Moleta, Entrepreneur at heart, Mom to two little hurricanes, Wife to a handsome bald-bearded man & Co-Owner and Founder of The Refillery.
@therefillerysa
Linkedin – Sam Moleta