The popularity of organic foods and products has grown in recent years. The booming attraction to all things organic is opening pathways of business opportunities in many areas that deal with the supply chain process of these products. This has drawn the interest of entrepreneurs in Nigeria and the rest of Africa, DANIEL ESSIET reports.
The Executive Secretary, BioGhanaNetwork, Mr David Gyasi’s passion for healthy living led to the creation of an organic restaurant in Accra, Ghana. He is Chief Executive, Florganic Restaurant, Accra, one of the most successful organic restaurants on the country. He studied nutrition.
He was in Lagos to address a national organic agriculture business summit organised by Association of Organic Agriculture Practitioners of Nigeria (NOAN). His interest in healthy living has turned into successful business. He studied nutrition. “I obtained my training in Nutrition at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana. I have been trained in Germany at GIZ International Training Centre, Feldafing on Organic and Fairtrade products,” he said. He serves as a chef and dietician, in Florganic Restaurant that aims at serving the public with purely organic foods and creating awareness on the importance of eating organic foods. The restaurant serves natural fruit juices, pastries, kebabs and cookies.
He said his company has created a lot of organic meals made from authentic ingredients by people who grew up eating and loving that food.
Though demand is growing, he maintained that running an organic restaurant is not easy. Organic foods are intrinsically more expensive than processed foods.
According to him, organic restaurants owners have to go to great lengths to maintain a consistent menu, especially in a tough economy.
He explained that managing an organic restaurant requires a high level of ingenuity—one would have to use everything that one knows about restaurants and quickly become an expert on consumer marketing.
He has had to work round the clock and visit villages to ensure that the contracted farmers produce required ingredients following basic organic good agricultural practices.
Over the past six years, he has engaged, trained and mentored several business owners, groups, individuals.
He also believes that a successful journey needs vision, letting go of what doesn’t matter, persistence, sheer hard work and determination.
In her presentation, Chief Executive, of Kate’s Organics, Kate Kibarah said as a child, she was obese. It didn’t matter in primary school as nobody cared about her being chubby. This, however, changed when she joined high school, as teens in the neighbourhood nicknamed her “balloon”. The clinical nutritionist and colon hydrotherapist, noted that she started discovering a lot about her body. “I realised I was actually fat, weighing 95kg. But this was a family problem, as both my parents and siblings were heavy,” she said. The humiliation became a blessing in disguise, because it drove her to read various books and research widely on natural remedies for her weight problem.
After Form Four, Kate was to study Law at the University of Nairobi, but opted for a degree in natural health, to pursue more about her problem. Unfortunately, no Kenyan University offered the course. Instead, she did Diet and Nutrition locally. “I started practising what l studied; changed my lifestyle — eating the right kinds of foods, exercising. Slowly, I started to lose weight. Many people noticed and asked me what I had done to lose weight,” she said. She later got a chance to study for a degree in Clinical Nutrition and furthered it into natural health, which included colon hydrotherapy. Initially, Kate had hoped to get employed after training but realised she could make a business out of her passion. She started a consultancy firm, advising individuals and small groups about eating natural foods. Soon, she started a colonic hydrotherapy service and gave specialised health training through lectures and presentations for corporations, and social networks. Her popularity got her invited to host radio and television programmes on healthy lifestyles.
By this time, so many of her clients complained of difficulty accessing the healthy organic foods she recommended. She realised the gap, and responded by starting to grow, process and sell organic products.
In the begining, she could hardly raise enough capital. She overcame this by working from her kitchen so she turned to her savings bearing in mind that even Rome was not built in a day. She started offering consultancy services. She had nothing and used the money that came later to start processing products. She didn’t go for a bank loan.
Kate’s Organics offers a healthy lifestyle advisory service. Its products are made from vitamin-rich leaves, flowers, roots and buds. As she began the company, she lacked experience and contacts on consumer information, knowledge and understanding of organic foods, therefore she invested a lot on research to enrich her understanding.
Today, her company supplies a range of organic products such as Kate’s Organics Moringa Oleifera Leaf Powder, Kate’s Organics Green Tea, Kate’s Organics Aloe Vera Natural Juice, Kate’s Organics Everyday Detox Tea, Kate’s Organics Pure Honey, Kate’s Organic Rejuvenate Plus and Kate’s Organics Healthy Greens. The demand for the products is overwhelming and she cannot fully satisfy the market. “People realising the need for good lifestyle, which goes with natural foodstuffs has worked in my favour,” she explained. She sources the raw material of high quality produce at competitive prices and from organically certified producers. She says she also supports small scale holder farmers including single mothers and widows who grow organic produce in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. She assists them with trainings, input and anything they need to run the farms.
She is looking for out growers in Nigeria to supply her organic raw materials. To supply her factory in Austria, she sources raw materials from Spain and Mozambique.
Her plan is to make Kate’s Organic internationally recognised Kenyan flagship for organic production and best practice for the promotion of a healthy lifestyle.
Organic food is Mrs. Saidat Shonoiki’s passion. She has consciously spread the word on nutritionally healthy foods. The Chief Executive Officer, Green Skills Nigeria, is one of those that have seen the benefits in organic food business and has taken advantage of the business by producing various organic food products.
According to her, consumers are interested in organic food, as people have become more aware of the health benefits of consuming meat and poultry when it’s natural, hormone-free, or grass-fed.
Apart from organic vegetables, she has made organic products from Moringa, ginger and other herbal crops. The products are finding their way to marketing outlets in Abuja and other parts of the country. The demand for the products is overwhelming. She attributes the success of her products to their high nutritional value which are gaining popularity as more people seek to prevent lifestyle diseases. As a result, she is now ploughing back profits into the business.
She has seen the change in consumer patterns and vouches for the growing popularity of all things organic.
She is too happy to spell out the benefits of organic eating.
She observed that organic food products doesn’t alter the nutritional content but avoids the synthetic pesticidal and insecticidal residues.
Based on her experience, Mrs. Saidat Shonoiki’s encourages all entrepreneurs interested in organic products to go for it. Saidat Shonoiki has over eight years of experience working directly with fish farmers in the manufacturing of high yielding affordable feeds. She currently serves as the Chief Operating Officer for De Ideal Agro Allies Service Ltd-A Feed Manufacturing Company based in Abuja, Nigeria. She has provided a substitute to imported floating fish brand in order to reduce feed cost. She provides business training to women and founded a business consulting and Islamic finance house called Mrs Saidat holds a bachelor’s degree in Agriculture from the University of Ilorin.
Mrs Shonoiki, received a $7 million grant from the World Bank for use in building a sustainable agricultural training centre.
However, the widespread popularity of organic products has led to some challenges. The President, NOAN, Prof Victor Olowe said there was a lack of certified organic Nigerian farmers to match organic food sales growth and its demands.
He observed that the sector needs to have the necessary tools to grow and compete on a level playing field. That means federal, state and local programmes that help support organic research, and provide the organic farmer with a fully equipped toolkit to be successful.
He said the industry needs players trained on organic handling and for more processing facilities to be opened, enlarged and retooled across the country.
According to him, NOAN is certifying organic farms, suppliers, and handlers across the country, and the sector is growing and creating the kinds of healthy, environmentally friendly products that consumers are increasingly demanding.