Today is Heritage Day, a holiday celebrating South Africa’s incredible cultural diversity. It’s also the unofficial start of summer and a day when South Africans celebrate their diversity by grilling meat. (Heritage Day has been rebranded by many as “Braai Day”.) I thought it would be a good day to tell you about Joburg’s best and most inspiring frozen dessert: Sobae sorbet.
Thato Masondo and Thula Ndema didn’t like seeing all the overripe fruit being discarded onto the street by Joburg’s downtown produce vendors. So after a few years of scheming and saving funds, Thula and Thato started Sobae Frozen, making sorbet from that overripe fruit and selling it on the streets of Braamfontein. Today, the couple makes and sells their sorbet at Victoria Yards and at pop-up events in the Wilds.
Sobae Sorbet
Sobae is no ordinary sorbet, with basic flavors like lemon and strawberry and mango. Thato and Thula are master flavor magicians, whipping up exotic combinations like apple and pomegranate with cinnamon or butternut and banana with chai spice. Using very ripe fruit (and vegetables!) makes the sorbet taste particularly sweet without a lot of added sugar. All of Sobae’s ingredients are locally produced and in season.
This Sunday Times article tells the whole Sobae story so I won’t repeat it all here. I’ll just say Sobae’s sorbet is spectacular and quintessentially Joburgian.
I only met Thato and Thula for a few minutes but I loved everything about them. They obviously love each other and love what they do so much — hence the cute and clever name, So-Bae. I wanted to hug them both and buy all of their sorbet, but instead I kept my hands to myself and settled for one serving (the apple-cinnamon-pomegranate). It was fantastic.
I recently read that throwing away less food is one of the easiest and most effective ways for individuals to offset the effects climate change. So let’s all eat a lot more Sobae. They’ll be at the Wilds this Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Follow Sobae on Facebook and Instagram. They also have a fantastic website.
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Such an inspirational couple and they fall in my favourite Joburg peoples list.
Absolutely.
It’s true, overripe fruit tastes better than ripe fruit as a baking ingredient. (Take banana bread!) I love the effective use of so-called garbage. 🙂
Me too!
Adorable. Their love for each other shines through.
It really really does. They’re the best.
“Joburgian” ????????
I think that’s definitely a word.
A little update from SOBAE. 💚
For the past month, we haven’t had a shop.
We didn’t really know how to tell you this, because honestly, we’ve been trying to figure things out ourselves.
After 8 years of building SOBAE, we’ve had to let go of most of the equipment we’ve worked so hard to build our business with. We’ve had to step away from our physical space because of circumstances beyond what we had planned for.
And it’s been hard.
We’ve tried doing pop-ups and events to keep the business moving, but sometimes we’d spend money on stock, transport and trailers, only to come home having barely covered anything. We’ve had days where we worked incredibly hard and still didn’t make enough to justify what we had spent.
So right now, SOBAE is back on the streets.
You’ll find us doing smaller pop-ups, selling where we can, taking opportunities as they come and figuring out what the next chapter looks like.
We’re not posting this because we have everything figured out.
We’re posting because SOBAE is still here. ❤️
Eight years of building this brand, creating products, meeting customers and turning rescued fruit into something beautiful cannot disappear overnight.
We’re starting again — perhaps not from where we wanted to, but from where we are.
If you’ve ever bought a SOBAE, shared our posts, brought a friend to our shop, supported us at an event or simply believed in what we’re building…
thank you.
And if you see us out there again, please stop by
I’m so sorry to hear that you’ve been struggling, Thato. Thank you for everything you do for our community.