Entek

"It was also Rupert who came up with the name for the ground coffee. ‘When you think of coffee, what springs to mind?’ he asked Entek’s directors. ‘I think of a bearded old man in a leather armchair puffing at his pipe and drinking coffee!’ Thus the name Senator was born. The name Frisco for their instant coffee also held great appeal for consumers. ‘The name itself evokes the impression of something quick, don’t you agree?’ René Morkel said in an interview with an English magazine that published a highly positive article about the origins of the women’s company a quarter of a century later."

"He approached two friends of his, first Mrs Hobbie le Roux of Oudtshoorn and later Mrs René Morkel of Stellenbosch, and suggested they launch a tea and coffee factory. They would receive the same treatment as all his business partners. He would show them the ropes, give them his support. But it would be their baby. That was how Entek was born. Share capital of £1 million was raised. Each shareholder had to buy at least £100 worth of shares and she had to be a woman: men could only buy shares in their wives’ names. The company was floated with 1 362 shareholders, all resident in South Africa and what is now Namibia and all of them female − either individuals or women’s organisations. The only exception was Rembrandt Tabakkorporasie, which contributed the £50 000 needed to buy out Holland-Afrika Koffiemaatskappy and Ceylon Tea Packers. Entek was registered in Pretoria and on 22 April 1955 it was incorporated into the Rembrandt Group."

"Hertzog, who complained in the early years because Entek, like Distillers, was not growing as quickly as Rembrandt, was also correct in his view that coffee and tea would not show such quick profits as tobacco did. Distillers started progressing after ten years, but was even then ‘not yet right’, in his words. In the case of Entek, Rupert’s long-term view was proved right. Despite boycotts, rumour-mongering and fluctuations in the tea and coffee market during the 1960s, the company became a success."