How Mamamac’s Grew a Family Business Without Losing What Made It Work
Growing a family business
Reviewed by
Genfin funding specialists
Published 15 October 2026
Last reviewed 19 October 2026
This article is general information and not legal or financial advice
When Anneke Mackenzie bought Mamamac’s from her mother in 2018, she came from 15 years in corporate marketing, not production.
“I knew nothing about production,” she says. “My experience was marketing.”
Mamamac’s began years earlier in the kitchen of the family farm in the Koue Bokkeveld, where Anneke’s mother, Lourensia, baked rusks for local customers and shops. The business later moved into the farm garage, and then into the old fish-and-chips café in Prince Alfred’s Hamlet where the factory still operates today.
Taking over was never part of Anneke’s plan. But when her mother started talking about moving to Kleinmond and selling the business if none of the children wanted it, Anneke reconsidered. The team in Prince Alfred’s Hamlet had become part of what Mamamac’s was. Selling or moving it would have meant losing knowledge and continuity that could not easily be rebuilt.
First, focus
Anneke’s first move was not to add more products.
She stopped some production lines, improved others and focused on the basics. The approach was simple: “Do what we do, do it well.”
For the first two or three years, she focused on strengthening what was already there: product quality, the core team and a business that had grown around her mother’s skill as a chef.
“My mother was a chef,” she says. “I don’t think she ever wanted a rusk empire. She was happy with the business, but she was not a businesswoman. She did the product part.”
Anneke was more interested in the business side: where growth could come from, which opportunities made sense and what had to change for Mamamac’s to become more sustainable.
The bigger shift came when the bakery started producing white-label and private-label products. Its first private-label customer was Engen, followed by Babylonstoren in 2022.
“The step change came when we started with private labels,” Anneke says.
Babylonstoren pushed the team into new-product development after years of familiar products. One of the first was a hot-cross-bun-flavoured biscuit for Easter, complete with a piped white cross.
“We literally practised the piping on stones in the kitchen,” Anneke says. Her sister, a trained chef, helped train the team. The product received good feedback and gave the staff confidence.
“It helped the team realise we can innovate. We can do new things.”
Anneke says Mamamac’s had already been growing organically, at around 15% to 20% a year, but private-label contracts accelerated that growth.
When the business gets too big for memory
Mamamac’s now employs 38 people, has more than 50 product lines and bakes between 2,500kg and 3,500kg of rusks and biscuits a week.
When the team was small, quality lived in people’s hands and memories. Everyone knew how a biscuit should look or how hard to press rusk dough into a pan.
“Quality was something we always took for granted,” Anneke says. “When you start with a team of six, everyone knows the product.”
With a larger team, that knowledge has to be written down, checked and built into systems.
In 2023, Mamamac’s introduced a production system that helped with planning, cost management and stocktaking. Food-safety processes also became more formal, and the business moved those systems away from paper.
Forecasting was another area where Anneke needed help. She brought in an engineer to build an Excel-based planning model.
“Now we have people who worked in orchards on the farms working on Excel,” she says.
That shift has also changed how Anneke thinks about her own role.
“I am now at a place where I figure out where my strengths are and where I can outsource,” she says. “I like order, but I don’t like detail.”
Production capacity: space, people and machinery
For years, Mamamac’s stayed in the same factory space, adding on gradually instead of moving to a larger site. Anneke wanted to remain in Prince Alfred’s Hamlet.
“The presence in Hamlet was important to me,” she says. “I wanted to be visible.”
Eventually, the old space began to work against them.
“You’ve got to sweat your assets as much as possible,” Anneke says.
But there comes a point where a crowded space starts costing the business in efficiency. Mamamac’s is now expanding its factory and preparing to move into a space that will double its current footprint. The process has been long and expensive, and has had to be planned around the bakery’s busiest months from September to December.
Anneke describes the financial pressure plainly. A business can reach a point where salaries are paid on time, there is a little room for bonuses and things begin to feel more comfortable. Then the next investment arrives.
“Then you are back in debt,” she says. “But it was necessary.”
As production grows, she has also had to think carefully about automation. Mamamac’s operates in an area where jobs matter, and Anneke wants the bakery to keep creating work. But the product also has to reach the shelf at a price customers are willing to pay.
“I don’t want a whole lot of machines and no people. That is not my goal.”
Some lines have already been partly automated, but she says the question is always where machinery will have the biggest impact, whether the investment makes financial sense, and where the people currently doing that work could add value elsewhere.
Cash flow management and the next stage
Anneke prepares an annual budget and studies the monthly management accounts. Early on, she handled purchasing, invoicing and much of the financial admin herself. It was demanding, but it gave her a detailed feel for the business.
“I think there is so much value in a cash-flow model,” she says. “You have to understand the ins and outs of the business. You can’t just walk in and delegate everything, but you also can’t do everything yourself.
“How do they say? Faith, hope and love… and the most important one of the three is cashflow.”
More production, more customers and more space all bring opportunity, but they also bring pressure. For Anneke, growth decisions have to be made with a clear view of sales, costs and cash flow.
She also thinks often of her mother. Family business succession, passing a business from one generation to the next, can be difficult, but Anneke says Lourensia continually encouraged her and made her believe she could do it.
“I think she is very proud to see how the business grew,” Anneke says. “At first, it was just a small business selling baked goods. It became so much more.”
Taking Mamamac’s forward has meant keeping the quality and people-focused culture her mother built, while changing the systems behind it. The next stage will depend on space, planning, people, machinery and the financial discipline to support the growth already there.
Business growth strategies to take from Mamamac's
Strengthen the core before you expand it.
Anneke spent her first two or three years cutting, improving and focusing rather than adding. A business that does fewer things well is in a far better position to say yes when the right opportunity arrives.
Look for the step change, not just steady growth.
Organic growth of 15% to 20% a year is solid. Private-label work changed the trajectory. It’s worth asking which customer, channel or contract could do the same for your business.
Move what’s in people’s heads into systems.
What a team of six knows by feel, a team of 38 needs written down. Planning, costing, stocktaking and quality checks are easier to build before growth forces the issue.
Treat automation as a business case, not a trend.
Ask where a machine will have the biggest impact, whether the numbers work, and where the people doing that job today could add more value.
Expect growth to put you back under pressure.
Expansion usually costs money before it makes money. A cash flow forecast, a clear cash-flow model, an annual budget and monthly management accounts are what let you make that call with confidence.
A note for manufacturers and family businesses
If you run an established manufacturing, food production or FMCG business, you’ll know that growth rarely arrives in tidy increments. A bigger contract means more stock, more people and sometimes more space, all paid for before the revenue lands, and often right in your busiest season. This is where business expansion funding can help bridge the gap.
At Genfin, we work with established South African businesses navigating exactly that pressure, with dedicated Business Funding Analysts on every application and funding built around how your business actually works. For more information, read our guide on how business loans work for established SMEs.
GET BUSINESS FUNDING ->
About GENFIN
GENFIN is a South African business finance provider founded in 2016 and backed by the GENFIN SA group, with RMB, Sanlam Investments, Ashburton Investments and STANLIB among its investors. Since inception GENFIN has assessed more than 81 000 funding applications and disbursed over R2.5 billion to South African SMEs and mid-corporates. More about the team.