A born and bred Capetonian, Simon Mantell started his formal working career in 1976 as a smooth talking 13 year old door to door salesman marketing mirrors after hours to homeowners in the newly built Mitchell’s Plain. This work experience served as an invaluable lesson in developing a thick skin while pitching ideas and products to potential customers. A mixture of fate and opportunity in 1988 provided him with the seed capital to be able to establish Mantelli’s which evolved from a pasta and ice cream retail business into a biscuit factory which manufactures premium biscuits and supplies major national retailers, private label clients as well as large corporates in the food service channel. This food service customer base includes local and international airlines, hotels and hospitals with exports to Spain, Germany, Finland and Russia. All his business ventures have been characterised by starting with limited capital and slowly building brick by brick. South Africa, with a high levels of controlled chaos presents the perfect platform for determined and entrepreneurially minded individuals to be successful as it is this controlled chaos which allows for “opportunity to be everywhere.”