Pilot Dries Human.
(Photo: Supplied)

As lockdown started in March, married couple Dries Human and Luné Naudé-Human’s worlds got flipped upside down when they both lost their income.

Dries, 31, a pilot for a major regional airline, was put on unpaid leave after his last flight to Bloemfontein on 27 March. Luné, 32, a divorce attorney who had just started her own business, had no money coming in either.

Instead of lamenting their fate, the pair started reading furiously. 

“While everyone else was on holiday, for the first two weeks we were just reading,” says Luné. The couple are speaking to DM168 over Zoom.

“But we weren’t reading storybooks. We read business books, like Jannie Mouton’s book [And Then They Fired Me] and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People [by Stephen Covey]. We read books that could actually help us do something.”

Dries leans over to Luné, smiling. He adds: “Ja, I said to my wife during lockdown level 5: ‘Who’s making the money now? It’s the food industry – because people need to eat – and pharmaceuticals.’ We realised we had to make something consumable, preferably something that’s easy and convenient.”

Of the two, Dries has always done the cooking. One day in April, he was making pancakes – his grandmother’s recipe – when inspiration hit.

“It was just such a mission,” says Dries. “It was a mess. So I said to my wife: ‘Listen, this doesn’t work. Everything is dripping everywhere.’ She was sitting watching me, just shaking her head. And then this idea came.”

Luné Naude-Human and husband Dries Human reminiscing about there successful new pancake business.
(Photo: Christiaan Kotze)

Over the next three weeks, through trial and error, he devised powders to replace the recipe’s milk and eggs, testing to find the right ratios.

“Every time I made a mistake, she said: ‘Write that down and improve on it.’ Then finally we got the perfect ratio and it’s delicious. It’s awesome. As I was testing one day, I flipped a pancake in the air. She was watching and said: we must name our product ‘The Flying Pancake’.”

Their premise? No-fail pancakes: “Just add water, shake and enjoy.”

At the time, the couple had R1,000 to kick-start the business. “Our first expense was R320 for the bottles,” says Dries. “We couldn’t buy just one bottle, we had to buy a whole bag of them. So that was a big decision for me.”

Luné adds: “Dries counts every cent. He’ll think about three times before he spends money on something. So for him to spend the R320 – where we only had R1,000 – was very hard. So I told him: ‘Just do it, it will sell.’ He just needed that little push.”

Dries Human demonstrating how only water is added to the dry pancake mix, ready for
baking.
(Photo: Christiaan Kotze)

Dries’ mum’s boyfriend works in stationery and arranged that they get labels printed free of charge. The labels show a pilot flipping a pancake; with creative names based on aviation puns, their initial offering was “Plane Pancakes” and “Plane Flapjacks”. These names were thought up by Luné.

The Flying Pancake started with 80 bottles, bought mostly by family and friends. Now the pancake mix is flying off the shelves – up to 700 bottles are sold a week – in eight provinces around the country.

“We did everything ourselves initially,” says Luné. “I was putting posts on social media, you know on like every Facebook group that I thought might be interested. Then product agents started getting in touch.” 

The price is about R45 a bottle, which yields 12 pancakes.

Luné’s legal work started picking up in August, but Dries is still waiting for the call to resume his job flying aeroplanes.

“My final flights were to Hoedspruit and back, then Bloemfontein and back,” says Dries. “I think we were actually the last aircraft to land in Joburg before the lockdown. Towards the end I had a Polokwane run too, where we saw that SAA plane returning from China; the flight that brought ex-pats home from Wuhan [on 14 March]. It was actually quite scary, but cool.

“I’ve been claiming Covid-19 TERS [from the Unemployment Insurance Fund]. As soon as the market picks up, a lot more pilots will be called back. I’m just waiting for that phone call: ‘Dries, we’re ready for you, come back and fly.’”

Going forward, the couple will continue their new business. They have expanded their range to include chocolate and caramel chip, and plan to have vegan and Banting options too. Their first employee, Annah Malitse, was being trained this week.

“We’re actually stepping out of Covid-19 better than when we entered it,” says Dries. “Now we have a company. It’s definitely going on. We have started training a lady now, which is fantastic.” DM/MC