Sonop Mark:
A market built to help, not to hustle
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Sonop Mark: A market built to help, not to hustle : Descriptive Title of the Audio
Description: When CD Van Reenen and Michael Bresler talk about Sonop Mark, they don't describe a quick business play.
When CD Van Reenen and Michael Bresler talk about Sonopmark, they don’t describe a quick business play.
They describe a long-term, community-first experience: a market born from the Pretoria Boeremark model and aimed at giving small-scale farmers, makers and households a fair shot at earning a living.
“This is our vision. This is our passion. We think we can do it. We know how to do it. We’re in the business,” CD explained. “We’re not somebody who wants to quickly set up a market and see how much money we can make out of it. We have experience and a passion and a long-term view.”
The core idea is simple: translate the strengths of an established market into smaller towns where farmers and small-business owners struggle to find consistent buyers.
CD explains how demand at the Pretoria Boeremark is high — so high that it creates a blueprint for taking those opportunities to other places.
“We have this passion to help farmers, to help small businesses. And we sat there, and we’ve got 30 to 40 applications every month. And the Boeremark in Pretoria is full. So that’s where we jumped on the plane and said, ‘Well, hang on. There must be other places where we can help farmers, and there must be in every town a small business or a hobby.”
For Michael, the motive is personal and practical: markets were vital to his family’s survival when they were small-scale farmers. When the market exists, the family eats; when it doesn’t, losses are real.
“My grandfather farmed, we farmed at one stage, my uncle still farms. We would spend a lot of time with my grandparents during school holidays, and they were small-scale farmers. They farmed chicken, and they fed them, grew them up and then had to sell them somewhere. And sometimes it was difficult for them to find a market to actually sell them.”
CD Van Reenen explains the four pillars on which the Sonopmark is founded:
- Helping farmers,
- Bringing the community together,
- Supporting small and young entrepreneurs, and
- Involving households that need income.
That framework shapes not just vendor selection, but how the market is run — from parking attendants to collaboration with local NPOs who can identify households that would benefit from casual, reliable work.
“We’re starting with one of the smallest towns that we could think of, but our market is the big towns,” CD said.
The team has chosen Pongola for its inaugural Sonopmark — a small-town launch with aspirations to serve larger towns as well. CD is candid about the risk: the project won’t be a quick revenue generator, and the founders expect it to take time, travel and investment.
“I say being brave and being stupid is actually the same thing. It's the outcome that determines what it actually was. So we can only see that later. So maybe we are brave, maybe we are stupid, but we are passionate and we're going to do this.”
– CD Van Reenen
If Sonopmark succeeds, it’s the sort of small-scale, human-centred success that can be replicated: markets that create predictable demand for small producers, opportunities for micro-entrepreneurs to test products, and modest jobs in every town that help households get by.
For CD and Michael, the project isn’t about scaling faster than the community can absorb; it’s about carrying the Pretoria Boeremark’s atmosphere — the care, the community, the long-term view — into places where it can make a measurable difference.
Sonopmark may be just a farmer’s market, but its mission reads like a compact development plan: use proven market mechanics to boost incomes, strengthen local supply chains, and give small producers a dignified path to sell what they make.
If the first launch is any indication, the founders will spend the next year proving that patience, people-first design, and a stubborn refusal to treat the market as a cash-grab can add up to something that matters.
Teagan specialises in Copywriting, Public Relations, Social Media Marketing and Blogging. Teagan uncovers the deeper “why” behind every venture. She believes that every person and project has a unique story, and nothing excites her more than transforming these narratives into compelling content that demands to be shared with the world.
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