Founder, Khaya Cookie
www.khayacookies.com

Alicia Polak will be a featured speaker at the Ladies Who Launch LIVE event in Harrisburg, PA, on March 6. Click here to learn more.

The South African township of Khayelitsha, near Cape Town, is home to nearly 1 million people living below the poverty level. Seventy percent of women who are heads of household are unemployed, and one out of every four children suffers from chronic malnutrition. Begging is a common method of survival for many residents who cannot escape the cycle of poverty and dependency. But one day, an unlikely hero arrived with an idea, a plan, and an apron.

Alicia Polak, founder of Khaya (meaning “home”) Cookie Company, replaces tin-cup dependency with self-sufficiency for the women of South Africa. The Khaya Cookie Company teaches women the skill and the business of baking, giving them a steady income and a sense of pride and dignity. In 2007, the company was the winner of the Food Network’s Edible Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

what we learned from alicia:
Successful people are those who turn obstacles into innovation.

Alicia lived an enviable life, earning six figures as an investment banker for Merrill Lynch and BlackRock Global Investment Group. But her dream job was in South Africa. While interning oversees with the UN, she decided she wanted to become an emergency-response director, overseeing logistics for dealing with natural and manmade disasters. To that end, she earned advanced degrees from New York University—a Master of Business Administration and a Master of Public Administration. But it was a difficult sector to break into and the dream job never materialized.

a september 11 wake-up call
“I returned to investment banking, but when 9/11 struck I said, ‘That’s it for me.’ I called the Freeplay Foundation, which provides access to radio broadcasting in remote pockets of Africa. I pushed them to come up with a small salary for me. And with that, I left for South Africa.”

finding purpose and passion
“Working with Freeplay was a great experience and enabled me to travel to many remote areas of Africa, but at the end of the day it wasn’t resonating with me. I knew I wanted to create something.”

channeling ben & jerry
“I started learning a lot about Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. The ice cream in South Africa is not the best. I read a line in their corporate responsibility report that said their goal was to ‘create and redistribute wealth.’ (Ben & Jerry’s combines ice-cream making with social missions.) That’s when the lightbulb went on. I thought, ‘I could do the same thing in South Africa with cookies.’”

which came first, the cookie or the business plan?
“First I implemented, then I worked the business plan around what was up and running. I handled it like an IPO. I created a deal calendar like on Wall Street—it says what’s going to happen when. Eventually I did do a plan, but I’m glad I executed first. It’s been financed on me up until today, but hopefully that will change soon.”

finding the missing ingredient
“You can’t expect women to become entrepreneurs armed with ingredients that aren’t even available in their township. And it’s not even easy for me to market these cookies, let alone these women who have no disposable income. I finally convinced the tribal leader to let me rent the community center, if for no other reason than to enable me to get their electricity turned back on. They were all pretty much sitting in the dark. We taught the women not only how to bake, but how to run the business and interact with customers. We also taught them basic math and computer skills.”

if you bake it, will they come?
“I thought that by giving paying jobs to people they would be happy. But initially they didn’t like me because of what I represented. I’ve got blond hair and blue eyes, which in the townships is not a great thing. And the first day when I didn’t see people coming to work, and I was there with all my ingredients, and drove 45 minutes to get there, I thought, ‘What am I doing?’”

getting into the minds and mouths of the customer
“Initially, it was difficult to sell the products in a retail setting. There was a perception that products from Khayelitsha did not represent quality. So I thought like a tourist and went to the hotels. Tourists want to buy things that are uniquely South African and that have a social conscience. I found a French pastry chef and paid for the best ingredients. We had colorful bags with dancing black mamas on it. The hotels served them and guests could also purchase them by calling us. I had to do the delivery.”

motivating workers with the big picture
“I learned that you can’t make workers just workers. They need to see the end result. One day I took four or five of the women to a hotel in one of South Africa’s major wine-producing regions. When they saw their cookies being served on tea and coffee trays in a five-star resort, they were so proud. They saw the whole consumption chain. Life just got so much better after that.”

when the cookie crumbles, opportunity is near
“We don’t use preservatives. We once had a big order held up by customs and the whole lot spoiled, costing us thousands of dollars. As a result we switched to modified atmospheric packaging which extracts oxygen and replaces it with a 70/30 mix of nitrogen and carbon dioxide. Sometimes something will happen that makes you think, ‘I can’t take this,’ but it ultimately pushes you to figure out something better.”

networking is everything
“I spend time with people. My friend helped me find the original location. Another friend owned a chocolate company and gave me a deal I never could have afforded otherwise. Another woman put me in touch with a consultant who was one of the original Whole Foods employees. Former CNN reporter Daryn Kagan put me on her Web site. We make a fantastic product, but ultimately, to get it on the shelf, it’s going to be all about who I know.”

words for the weary
“I love the quote ‘Imagination is a preview of coming attractions.’ When I get bogged down, I imagine that for every 150,000 boxes of cookies I sell, I create 100 jobs which will put food in the mouths of 800 people.” (In South Africa, there is a dependency ratio of 8:1.)

alicia’s next big bite
“We’re developing brownies and shortbreads with Rooibos (Red Bush) tea, which is very high in antioxidants. We’re also doing a Khaya Crunchie with oats, apricots, dates, and seeds. We have the country’s top food scientist, so we’re moving into nutriceuticals, making products high in Omega 3, 6, and 9. My new passion is to begin distribution in Europe.”

sweet deal for ladies who launch members
Khaya Cookies is now offering a 10 percent discount to Ladies Who Launch members. Go to www.khayacookies.com and click on the link for the “preorder form.” In the checkout section of the preorder form, enter “KHAYAHEART.” The products will be available on or about March 15.

This Featured Lady was profiled by Sandra Sellani, a brand consultant and author in Southern California.