Julia Shinaba is the Managing Director of Skiddo Foods. Her culinary skills started with a father who was a chef. Interestingly, the amazon is also very passionate about issues that affect women; a passion which earned her a degree in Women Studies. In this interview with Yetunde Oladeinde, she speaks about gender, family life and more.
WHAT do you do at the moment? I am the Managing Director of Skiddo Foods. It’s a subsidiary of Fumman Group. We branched into doing corn-based snacks for both adult and children. The major raw material is corn and we fused it with chocolate which is also produced in Nigeria.
How long have you been doing this?
Skiddo Foods Limited started about five years ago. This pop snack came in last year and the experience has been wonderful.
What were you doing before this?
We were doing a partial snack, the Papiya Corn chips, which is like Doratoes which is very common abroad. When we saw that Nigerians were not very receptive to it, we had to redesign another one that is more Nigerian friendly.
Tell us about your background
I have a background in Hotel Management. I studied Leadership Studies in Canada and when I came back to Nigeria I did Hotel Management. I have always been in foods. Then my father, Pa Dennis Udenze, was a chef. He died at the age of 100 years, about seven years ago. When Queen Elizabeth came to Nigeria in 1956, he was the head chef of those who served her. I wasn’t born then.
What are some of the things that you took from him?
Basically, I took his genes for the love of cooking and spicing foods. That is the major thing that inspired me to study Hotel Management. He used to bake all what we ate in the house. So, we all got interested in baking from as early as age three or four. You had your own chopping board and rolling pin to do your own meat pie and he would do your filling for you. You put it in the oven and it was ready.
Would you say that he was competing with your mother in the kitchen?
My mother liked food too, but basically what he did for us was that he made sure he gave us special foods when we were young. We were used to eating good food at home, particularly confectionaries. We never bought bread outside. He would bake all the bread and pasteries for the house. And then he used to cook this roasted chicken that was so nice, it really inspired me. I got so used to the spices that he used in those days. Now, I am looking at the indigenous things that we can use in Nigeria; that is what I am also working on at the moment.
What are some of the challenges of working in the sector?
The challenges are numerous, for example energy. I must say that at Skiddo Foods, we have never used PHCN because once it goes off, the whole line is destroyed. So, we have always been on generator and because our raw materials are indigenous, that has also helped us, even with the new policy. Recently, we also had some problems with the policy on foreign exchange. It is affecting us in terms of packaging materials. This is because most packaging companies say that they need to source their raw materials abroad or outside Nigeria and they need foreign exchange.
So that is really slowing us down a little bit. Also, there is the challenge of employability of the personnel that is needed. We find that most young people these days are graduates but not employable. The skills are limited, unlike when we were in school. We were always after the skill but these days they are after the certificates rather than the skill acquisition. Even though when they see someone who is hardworking and surviving, I won’t say making it because it’s so hard to make it now. They just think that you can survive overnight. They do not think of the hard work that somebody has put into it for years. That is a big challenge.
As an expert in Women Studies, what are some of the things you discovered during your programme?
When I was doing my research, I found out that Nigerian women are really strong. I found that most women actually hold the homes. They hold Nigeria. Africa was built on entrepreneurship, women working, holding homes, supporting their husbands. They told me that a lot of their husbands work in the civil service and they are in the markets. My research looked basically at women and entrepreneurship. Those women in the markets, I found out in my interaction with them that they actually hold the homes. They paid the fees, they take out the children and support the men. But, ordinarily, they make the man look as if he is the one who holds the family.
These days, you have a number of cases of spousal abuse in the home. How can this be checked?
I think it is an ego problem on the part of the man. Their orientation is that the man is this and that. So, when there is a challenge and the man cannot meet up with his responsibilities, it becomes an ego problem for him and he becomes violent. So, what I would advise is that women should still remain as women. They should be as supportive as they can be but should also remember that the African culture says that the man is the head of the family. So getting into competition should not be a priority for the woman, it is something that you should do with humility. In doing that, the children would not grow in an environment of violence. Interestingly, I did a bachelor’s degree in Women Studies.
What inspired your interest in this area?
I was inspired because I saw my mother as a very strong woman and my father was a very supportive man. You can see what happened in their kitchen. My father wanted to do this for the family and he did it joyfully. And they were married for over 70 years. He had ten children from the same woman; they stayed together until he died. My mother is still alive, she is 96 years old. So, whether a man is able to support his family fully or not, a woman has to be humble. Even the Bible says so. We should not get all this career or position into our head to the point where it becomes challenging for the man and it affects the man’s ego.
Where would you like to see Skiddo Foods in the next five years?
We are looking at having about 20 different brands of our products and very soon we would be coming out with different fillings. In addition, we would have developed more of our products to be more African friendly.
If you have to advise young women looking for white collar jobs, what would you tell them?
From my experience, entrepreneurship is very interesting. Most of them have skills which they have not been able to use or identify. What I would say is that we the adults, those already in entrepreneurship or their lecturers, should try to explore their skills and identify what they are good at before they go into the institutions. Parents should also try to be closer to their children and explore their skills, identify them and also support them. So, when they know their passion and strengths, there is a likelihood that they would pursue it. They would therefore see it as not just work but something they are interested in.
The economy is tough at the moment. What is the thing that keeps you going?
What keeps me going is that we have a product that is acceptable. The children and adults like it. What also gives us the drive is that the little that we make is sustaining us. Also the fact that the majority of people enjoy what they eat is really satisfying.
When you are not doing all of this, what occupies your time?
Dancing. I love dancing and I use that as a form of exercise as well. I also love partying.