Home production is still widely practised, but the drink is also available at many supermarkets, being produced at factories.

Its taste is derived predominantly from the lactic acid that is produced during fermentation, but commercial mageu is often flavoured and sweetened, much in the way commercially-available yogurt is.

Thin mealie pap (maize meal) is prepared, to which wheat flour is added, providing the inoculum of lactate-producing bacteria.

Nutritionally, it is similar to its parent mealie meal, but with the glucose metabolized to lactate during fermentation.

Commercial preparations are often enriched (In South Africa, the term 'fortification' is only allowed legally for specific, government-sanctioned nutrition programs, e.g. that of bread) with vitamins and minerals.