Grief sparks inspiring business

What started off as a journey of dealing with grief, has evolved into a vibrant African cuisine business providing tasty delicacies to its customers.

In 2017 during the festive season, Metse Petunia Thebe lost her mother and to deal with the grief, she focused on cooking some of her mother’s favourite meals.

She narrated that every year during the festive season her mother would prepare delicious meals and transport them to Johannesburg. 

As a way of honouring her mother, she continued with this tradition but made dumplings for her colleagues.

“My mother was a generous person so in remembrance of her, I prepared two dumplings and took them to work. 

I said to them, ‘had my mother been alive she would have sent me food,’” said Thebe who is based in Cosmo City in Gauteng.

Thebe’s colleagues encouraged her to continue making dumplings. 

At the time, Thebe was just making the food as a way of connecting with her late mother and had no intention of starting a business.
“For me it was about a deep-seated love for cooking and a way to honour my mother.

One day, Thebe was surprised to receive an order for 300 dumplings for a ceremony. The lack of proper equipment did not deter.

With only a single pot and a small kitchen at her disposal, she embarked on this journey fuelled by a desire to keep her mother’s memory alive. 

“I made means to arrange a stove and more pots and I invited my sister to assist me. We worked from Friday night and until the next morning and the orders were ready for collection,” she told Vuk’uzenzele.

The order was the beginning of Cosmo Dumplings, which is a restaurant founded by Thebe specialising in a range of African cuisines, such as dumpling, ox head, mala mogodu, and hardbody chicken. 

In 2024, Thebe resigned from her full time job to focus on Cosmo Dumplings. Today, her business employs 10 people and continues to keep Thebe’s mother’s memory alive.