“Wouldn’t it be amazing if REAL food just… came ready?”
It started with a single dehydrator, a sister returning from the UK, and a conversation that built an unlikely, quietly obsessive family mission.
Lizelle and Renette — sisters, foodies. One had an idea. The other said yes.
They enjoy good food. They value their bodies. And they are busy. The idea that those three things couldn’t coexist without hours in the kitchen bothered them.
They also grew up carrying hiking packs loaded with butternut, Melrose cheese, Provitas and Marmite, Toppers and Smash. They loved those trips. They just figured the food could be better.
“After some spectacular early disasters (two enormous biltong dryers, a garage full of fermenting fruit, and one very tipsy electrician), they found their footing.”
Three meals. A lone dehydrator. A market stall at The Palms. The Raw Food Company was born.
Then life did what life does. Renette fell in love, got married and moved back to the UK. The stubborn belief that convenience food didn’t have to mean compromised food, stayed.
When Getaway Magazine put their meals through their test kitchen — not once, but twice — and gave them top score both times, the hikers found them. Word spread. AfrikaBurn camps, Cape to Rio yacht crews, ultra runners, hunters, anglers. People who needed food that could keep up with their lives.
Today Lizelle and husband Jullian — once a sceptic, but the man who can actually cook — run the business day to day. Renette remains part of the Dri Food Co story; she’s now in the UAE, keeping a close eye on her brainchild. Three sons and a daughter-in-law, Johan, Alston, Brendan and Kawther each found their way in, bringing investment, design, tech and media skills. And then there’s Renette’s son Flynn — 10 years old, dehydrating since toddlerhood, a keen little foodie with big ideas. Even AI has pulled up a chair and made itself useful.
It’s properly, chaotically, wonderfully a family business now.
The Dri Team
Lizelle, Renette & Family
Our recipes, kitchens and name have evolved, but our baseline standards remain locked in place.
Ready. Steady. Eat.
Real, Pure Ingredients
No preservatives. No artificial anything. Just real food, doing what real food does. No added sugar, or seed oils either. Not even soy or gluten.
Entirely Plant-Based
Plant-based by choice, not by rule — because it works for the widest range of people. And if you’d like to add some protein or dairy on the side, go right ahead. We hope that it comes from a good place — for the animal, and for you.
Food is Medicine
What you put in matters. We’ve seen it first-hand. That’s why every ingredient is chosen with intention — because feeling good shouldn’t be a coincidence.
Crafted with Care
Small batch. Family-made. Every pouch leaves our kitchen the way we’d want it to arrive at yours — honestly made and genuinely good.
A Poem for Dri Food Co
Dri Food Co grew from seeds of passion,
a sisterhood’s dream where flavours renew.
With hearts attuned to earth and sky,
we craft delights where taste and conscience fly.
Our kitchen’s alchemy, a sacred art,
blends nature’s bounty, pure from the start.
With every morsel, a story unfolds,
of fields and forests, stories untold.
From mountain peaks to bustling towns,
our meals are comfort, worn as crowns.
A promise kept, with every bite,
to nourish bodies, bathed in light.
Join us on this journey, a soulful quest,
where taste and purpose are put to the test.
For in each dish, a world we share,
of harmony and love, beyond compare.
Ready, steady, eat and be free,
with Dri Food Co, your spirit will be.
— KBL —