Vuyo’s ‘beeg, beeg dreamer’ catapulted into forum to help reshape fashion industry

An entrepreneurial South African has joined the panel of the Global Change Awards where he will help to identify and nurture innovative solutions to transform the fashion industry.

Miles Kubheka, the resourceful creator of Vuyo’s Restaurant, which cheekily piggybacked off the success of the Hansa Pilsner “Beeg, beeg dreamer” advert, will also be advising on the Global Change Awards’ Impact Accelerator Programme.



Launched by the H&M Foundation in 2015, the initiative invites bright minds from around the world to submit ideas that can reshape the fashion industry in terms of sustainability and social impact. 

Kubheka, who has a “rags-to-riches” story, holds a Master’s degree in Business and a postgraduate Business Diploma from GIBS Business School. He’s also a serial entrepreneur, television chef and author.

This year, 10 global innovations were chosen as winners and awarded €200,000 each (just over R4-million) to support their development and contribute to a more sustainable fashion industry.

Among the winners is Kenya-based company Rethread Africa, which regenerates agricultural waste from sugar and maize into bio-based synthetics. The biodegradable textile fabric is designed to break down and re-enrich the soil at the end of its life. They say their “big, hairy ambitious goal” is to replace 15% of polyester over the next decade.

By turning agro-waste into bio-based synthetics, they have developed a material that uses far fewer resources while retaining the same qualities as petroleum-based synthetics. The material is sourced from smallholder farmers.



Another winner, Refiberd, is owned by a team of American female engineers who aim to solve the global textile waste crisis.

Through advanced tech, they ensure the efficient and accurate sorting of textiles for recycling applications to unlock a 100% circular economy.

Data suggests that a truckload of textile waste is discarded each second, worldwide. That equates to 84.4 billion kilograms of textile waste being dumped globally each year – more than 80% of which is incinerated and added to landfills.

Because recyclers are not able to process unsorted textile waste, less than 1% of this waste is recycled into new clothing.

Refiberd’s sorting technology can help divert up to 70% of the textile waste stream to high-value recyclers and unlock new opportunities across the industry.

A previous winner, Infinited Fiber, is a Finnish company that developed technology to transform textile waste into new fibres for the industry. 

The fast-growing fashion and textile tech company’s technology is used to turn waste into a new premium textile fibre, not only to help the H&M Group achieve its own sustainability goals but also has the potential to have an impact on the broader textile industry.

It supplies leading brands such as Adidas, H&M and Zara. 

After an initial investment in 2019, in July 2021, Infinited Fiber raised a further €30-million to fuel the circular fashion industry. The H&M Group has signed a multiyear sales deal to secure access to its regenerated textile fibre, Infinna.

Key account director of Infinited Fiber, Kirsi Roine, explained on the sidelines of last week’s World Circular Economy Forum in Helsinki that the textile industry is one of the top five most polluting in the world, and is also related to slave labour.

By converting textile waste into raw material, they are helping to make the fashion industry more sustainable because there is no need to extract new natural resources (and use as many chemicals) to make textile fibres if they can be obtained from used clothing. 

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