Ololade Adewunmi is the CEO of O’Della Spices. In this interview with Yetunde Oladeinde, she talked about her inspiration, producing local spices, her passion for charity, challenges and more.
HOW did it begin?
It all started as a passion. I am into health and passion. I sell weight loss supplements on how people control healthy living. Along the line, I found out that my clients always tell me that after we slim down, what can we do. How do we maintain this and they tell me that sometimes they feel like going back. So, I did a lot of research and at a point, I was opportune to go to India. It was a Lion’s conference and there I met a lady doing spices for different things including weight loss and I felt so interested. I asked her how to go about it and she promised to teach me.
What happened after you came back from India?
I was still selling my supplements and what really brought the idea was when my dada did his 70th birthday some years ago. One of my sisters brought some spices, that she did herself and I asked is we could get some of the spices in Nigeria and she said yes.
What kept you going?
When you have a dream and a passion, you would not stop at that. You will definitely, go forward. What I really did was to call the lady in India and I asked her some things. I also did my research and I went for a little training on Spices and herbs, and from there, I got a name. It is a partnership with my sister and she also knew so much about spices. She actually inspired me when she came with the spices . I told you about earlier on. The name of the company is O’Della is a combination of our names , Olaide and Ololade. We did the registration and started producing in bits.
At the beginning we were giving people to taste and we got good feedbacks. I told my sister, we can’t stop at this. However, when you don’t have lots of funds, it can be a bit challenging. But if the passion is there, you will definitely want to go forward. It started like a dream and my father kept encouraging us. At a point, I took some to Supermarkets and they said because we didn’t have NAFDAC numbers, they cannot take it. So, we started working on our registration with NAFDAC. And to get this, you must have a factory. That was another big problem. I looked round but there was nothing I could do. My father had a building which was lying low and we converted it to a factory in Ondo state. We were given the rules and regulations and we finally got the number.
What were the initial challenges?
It wasn’t easy at the beginning. Like I told you earlier on, funding is the greatest challenge. Even till now, it is not easy. My mission is to promote healthy living using spices and herbs. These days a lot of the foods they sell to us are chemicals, they have preservatives, they have MSG which is not good for our health. And the cancers that we are having today, some of them are from all this. All the heart diseases we have today, these are some of the causes. By going into this my products have zero preservatives, no chemicals, no addictives, all natural.
What are the things that inspire you?
I must say that it is the passion and the vision that I have. I want to promote healthy living. If our forefathers can live healthy and stay long, why can’t we do the same when we eat right.
Have you gone through trainings in this area?
I have gone to learn more about the strategies with organizations like LSETF, marketing skills and now I would need to go out for getting grants.
What are the things that you produce?
I have Curry powder, mixed spices, ready to drink Zobo powder, dry pepper, Tumeric, Original Cynamon from India. I have mostly, a range of spices.
Since you started doing this, there would be some happy moments doing this?
For me, the memorable moments would be my dad’s 70th birthday because that is what brought this to life. If my sister didn’t bring that Yaagi pepper, I won’t know
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