Yehbaby and Food For Mzansi honoured with two international awards.

You don’t need much to get our team excited, but when we received word that our client and media partner Food For Mzansi had been nominated for two African Digital Media Awards, we were overjoyed.

On 11 September during the prestigious Digital Media Africa conference held in Johannesburg, Food For Mzansi was announced as Africa’s Best Digital News Start-up. As well as the runners-up in the Best Social Media Engagement category for work done in partnership with YehBaby Marketing. This recognition of course had us doing a few happy dances around the office.

The prestigious Digital Media Awards, presented by world media body WAN-IFRA, recognise publishers who have delivered unique and original digital media projects in the last 12 months. Based on the strict qualifying specifications of this category, Food For Mzansi demonstrates an original offering and noticeable growth in user engagement. The online agricultural publication also makes best use of the relevant social media platforms to actively reflect the voice and tone of their brand.

Our CEO and creative director of YehBaby, Ronelle Louwrens, says she is delighted to have received international recognition for their #MzansiHeroes and #MzansiFlavour social media campaigns, developed for Food For Mzansi.

According to Louwrens, Food For Mzansi is proof that a solid digital strategy is crucial for business success. All aspects of the brand, including its marketing efforts, are aligned. “Also, the journalism team share YehBaby’s passion for out-of-the-box digital strategies. This has made a major difference in how ordinary South Africans embraced Food For Mzansi despite it being a newcomer to the South African media space,” she adds.

Pictured here from left: Ivor Price (Food For Mzansi co-founder), Ronelle Louwrens (CEO of YehBaby), Dawn Noemdoe (Food For Mzansi editor) and Kobus Louwrens (Food For Mzansi co-founder and YehBaby Strategy Director)

YehBaby and Food For Mzansi became media partners less than a year ago. In that time, we worked to design a user-friendly and interesting website, execute social media campaigns, handle social marketing and website content management, and offer comprehensive strategic social marketing support.

Food For Mzansi is an initiative that introduces South Africans to the unsung heroes of the agricultural industry and was started by award-winning journalists and media entrepreneurs Ivor Price and Kobus Louwrens (Louwrens is also YehBaby’s strategy director). Both believe in the power of agriculture to promote nation building and social cohesion by telling stories that are often overlooked by broader society.

Since the online platform’s inception in November 2018, they have had more than 250 000 social media engagements on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The website, designed and managed by has built a fast-growing audience, with up to 50 000 unique visitors per month.

According to Price, they were quite surprised, but extremely pleased with the two nominations. “We are grateful for the international recognition not only for our work in journalism, but also in agriculture. Ultimately, we are doing it for the love of the land.”

Kobus explains that Food For Mzansi is committed to innovative storytelling and great journalism. “We would like to express our sincere appreciation to the VKB Group as well as our other project partners, and especially to the hundreds of thousands of people who have digitally crossed our path since our inception.”

The winners of the African Digital Media Awards have been automatically entered into the World Digital Media Awards competition which is taking place during the World News Media Congress. Ronelle and the Food For Mzansi team are jetting off to the 9th Asian Digital Media Awards in Hong Kong and hope another award while they’re there.

Here at YehBaby Digital Creatives, we are ecstatic that our online support has helped Food For Mzansi gain international recognition and we wish them well for the competition.