YOLO began after a late-night session spent trawling the internet to find a solution to her own household composting woes. Lisa de Speville and her partner-at-the-time came across the concept of compost tumblers. Compared to so many other composting methods, tumbling made complete sense with the tumbler doing the essential work of mixing and aerating the materials. Lisa’s problem was limited space and not being able to turn or get any compost out of their growing compost heap. When they couldn’t find compost tumblers available in South Africa, they began thinking about making their own. Drawing on his years of design experience, he worked up the YOLO Compost Tumbler design and a few months later, in early 2017, the first YOLO Compost Tumbler shell was rotomoulded.

The YOLO Mixer, a single large tumbler frame on a frame, is a new addition. In years past, Lisa made these units on special request from customers needing and easier way to mix volumes of material from bird feed to bath salts, coffee, soils and fertilisers. Lisa uses a YOLO Mixer to combine and store her favoured dry materials of sawdust and shredded leaves. This unit will be available from August 2023.

Lisa is currently (July 2023) prototyping a new product that complements the YOLO Compost Tumbler and YOLO Mixer.

Shortly after starting with the compost tumblers, a chance conversation resulted in the YOLO Calf Hutch, the design of which was inspired by Lisa’s travels in Spain where she saw church and city walls that have stood for hundreds of years. Although the calf hutch is primarily for the dairy industry for the raising of calves with individual attention, the YOLO Calf Hutch also makes a superb kennel for large dogs.