{"id":809072,"date":"2025-01-28T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=809072"},"modified":"2025-01-28T16:36:51","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T14:36:51","slug":"from-south-africas-top-butchery-to-a-dilapidated-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/809072\/from-south-africas-top-butchery-to-a-dilapidated-building\/","title":{"rendered":"From South Africa’s top butchery to a dilapidated building"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Uitkyk Vleismark in Lichtenburg was a prosperous business which won the \u2018Best Butchery in South Africa\u2019 award. However, municipal mismanagement killed the enterprise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Entrepreneur Susan Ludick started Uitkyk Vleismark in Lichtenburg in the nineties with second-hand equipment and five employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She built it into one of the country\u2019s top butcheries, which included moving to a building with better parking and a modern layout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The success enabled her to upgrade and enhance their equipment to the latest on the butchery market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The business grew rapidly, and she became a significant employer in the town with twenty-four highly skilled people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She added other divisions, including a packaging- and spice shop, a take-away caf\u00e9, and a to-hire shop for catering supplies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It became a landmark business in Lichtenburg and despite being situated in a small town, it competed favourably against its counterparts across South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uitkyk Vleismark won the top national prize numerous times in the annual Cleaver Awards, which the South African Red Meat Industry Forum presented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The awards recognise butcheries that meet the highest standards based on consumer feedback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to winning the national award, it was named the best butchery in the North West province for many consecutive years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uitkyk Vleismark was also named the Boerewors Koning in the Santam and Jacaranda Boerewors competition and the National Meat Marketer of the Year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lichtenburg Business Chamber lauded Uitkyk Vleismark\u2019s achievements, saying its owner and staff are an example to other businesses in the town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She ran a successful medium-sized business in Lichtenburg and employed 26 people across the three divisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ludick was one of the wealthiest and most successful business owners in Lichtenburg and ran her company for three decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was named Businesswomen of the Year by the South African Union of Business Women, celebrating her success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A mismanaged municipality crushed Uitkyk Vleismark<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The collapse of the Ditsobotla Local Municipality (DLM), which runs Lichtenburg, crushed Ludick\u2019s businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The town\u2019s taps regularly run dry, and most households and businesses rely on water tankers and boreholes for water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Electricity outages can last for days or weeks, infrastructure like roads has collapsed, and the municipality cannot pay its service providers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While many businesses have continued to push through, others have closed shop as the challenges became too much to handle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clover was one of the companies which left the town. It closed its cheese factory in Lichtenburg due to poor service delivery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Lichtenburg factory has been experiencing water and power outages for years, and the municipality has not maintained the surrounding infrastructure,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDespite numerous efforts to engage the municipality on these matters, the issues have not been resolved,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Businesses across the town also said they struggle to employ skilled talent, as very few people want to move to Lichtenburg, given its problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ludick\u2019s Uitkyk Vleismark and Ludick\u2019s related businesses were some of the casualties of poor service delivery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She told BusinessTech that the prolonged water and power outages forced her to close her three businesses and sell her commercial building for next to nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI left behind two houses and a block of townhouses for which there were no buyers. I lost millions of rands,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To add to her misery, she had to pay the Ditsobotla municipality R1.4 million for service charges in arrears before the commercial building could be transferred to the buyer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI used to be a rich and successful businesswoman who helped to build Lichtenburg. I am now a 65-year-old widow struggling to survive,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, the once bustling Uitkyk Vleismark building is a dilapidated building without much happening around it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story of Uitkyk Vleismark and Susan Ludick is a stark reminder of the impact of the government\u2019s poor service delivery and mismanagement on ordinary citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the ruling party and corrupt politicians play political games and wrestle for power, businesses and people living in these towns endure tremendous suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Uitkyk Vleismark during better times<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Uitkyk Vleismark building today<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Uitkyk Vleismark in Lichtenburg was a prosperous business which won the \u2018Best Butchery in South Africa\u2019 award. However, municipal mismanagement killed the enterprise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":809173,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[21023,21572,21571],"class_list":["post-809072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-lichtenburg","tag-susan-ludick","tag-uitkyk-vleismark"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809072"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":809168,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809072\/revisions\/809168"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}