African Business Stories
African Business Stories is the go-to podcast for insights into the women shaping Africa’s business landscape. Africa is one of the world’s most promising frontiers for growth and innovation—and women are at the heart of this transformation.
Hosted by Akaego Okoye, this podcast spotlights female entrepreneurs who are breaking barriers, scaling businesses, and driving economic development across the continent. Through bold conversations, we explore funding, scaling strategies, digital transformation, and industry innovations—equipping you with insights, practical tools, and inspiration to navigate your own entrepreneurial journey.
When women win, economies thrive. These stories amplify success, challenge narratives, and create a blueprint for the next generation of female leaders in Africa and beyond.
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African Business Stories
Kudzayi Hove: Co-Founder & CEO, Amayi Foods - From Private Equity to Purpose in Africa’s Food Ecosystem
Kudzayi Hove's entrepreneurial journey from Zimbabwe to Nigeria represents a masterclass in adapting, pivoting, and building with purpose in Africa's challenging business landscape. As co-founder and CEO of Amayi Foods, meaning "mother" in her native Shona language, Kudzayi and her co-founders have transformed what began as a passion for Ghanaian Shito sauce into a mission to reclaim value from African agricultural commodities.
The path hasn't been straightforward. After leaving her finance career at AFC, Kudzayi and her co-founders discovered that their initial focus on premium condiments and modern retail channels was limiting their growth potential. This realization prompted a fundamental strategic shift toward mass-market essentials like tomato paste that could reach consumers through traditional markets, which account for 90% of retail volume in Nigeria. Today, Amayi's products are distributed across 29 states, with 99% of sales flowing through these traditional channels.
What sets Amayi's approach apart is their deep understanding of vertical integration. Rather than simply manufacturing consumer products, Kudzayi recognized that sustainable growth required building lasting partnerships with farmers and aggregators. This infrastructure not only secures consistent inputs for their retail products but has evolved into a broader vision of processing African commodities for international markets – capturing substantially higher margins than exporting raw materials.
The company stands at a transformative moment with plans to acquire an established manufacturing operation that will dramatically scale their capabilities. Looking ahead, Kudzayi envisions Amayi as a $100 million enterprise within 5-7 years, built on three pillars: a strong FMCG platform with leading market positions, a nutritional commodities business serving domestic and international markets, and a commodity processing operation that maximizes value from African agricultural products.
For fellow entrepreneurs, particularly women, Kudzayi offers wisdom earned through a decade of building: take care of yourself while you build. Even in the midst of survival-level challenges, finding moments for rest and renewal isn't a luxury but a necessity for sustainable success.
Discover Amayi's products in markets across Nigeria or connect with them through social media @amaifoods_ng and at www.amaifoods.com.
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With more female entrepreneurs than any other region in the world. Women are at the heart of Africa's transformation. Welcome to African Business Stories, the show that amplifies the voices of female entrepreneurs shaping Africa's business landscape. I'm your host, ekego Koye. Here we explore bold ideas, strategies for scaling and the realities of building businesses that drive economic development. These stories will provide insights into Africa's business landscape, practical tools for growth and the inspiration to navigate your own entrepreneurial journey. Be sure to subscribe, rate and share journey. Be sure to subscribe, rate and share On the show.
Speaker 1:Today I chat with Kudzai Hovay, co-founder and CEO of Amai Foods. Born in Zimbabwe and now based in Nigeria, kudzai shares her remarkable journey from private equity to entrepreneurship, driven by her desire to build something meaningful, create mass market products and unlock more value from African goods. We explore her lessons in navigating co-founder dynamics, overcoming the struggle to scale, and why taking care of yourself as a founder matters. Let's get into it, hi Kudzai. Welcome to African Business Stories, thank you. Thank you very much, akaego. So good to be able to sit down with you today. I know that you were born and raised in Zimbabwe and I wonder what that was like for you growing up in Zim.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was an interesting time. I was born during the war, the liberation struggle, and at a very early age, when I was about nine months, my parents left the country to go to the UK to study because at the time it was an apartheid system, blacks in universities and then the only professions that were open were teaching and nursing. So if you wanted to do something else, it was really difficult to do that if you stayed. So they left my brother and I was three years older with family members, etc. So my earliest memory was being in the village at my paternal grandparents' home and I remember it as a happy time as a child.
Speaker 2:But it was also during the war, right. So I do remember moments where my grandmother put me on her back and was running from soldiers, right. Or I remember a time when my cousin and I were at the homestead by ourselves. I think the adults were in the field or I'm not sure, but I remember white soldiers approaching the homestead and asking us through translators, where the grown-ups were and being absolutely terrified. Yeah, it was intense. Those were my first memories. Like I said, I felt they were happy memories but at the same time there were these intense moments.
Speaker 1:Did you get to go join your parents at some point?
Speaker 2:Yes, so when I was four years old, my brother and I went to join our parents and I also remember that journey. I remember being on a plane. I couldn't speak English at the time journey. I remember being on a plane. I couldn't speak English at the time. My brother could speak a bit of English and it was back in the days where they would take the boys to the cockpit, but little girls presumably weren't interested in the cockpit. And I remember feeling abandoned because my brother, who was the only person who could speak the language, was not there, could kind of speak. The language was not there and the only person I knew. I remember screaming and them trying to calm me down. And then I also remember we stopped somewhere. I don't know if it was Johannesburg or Rome, it was also. It was a time when there were sanctions, right.
Speaker 2:So, there couldn't be direct flights into Rhodesia at the time. So I do remember spending the night in a hotel with a flight attendant in the same bed as my brother, and when I tell people that they're like what, it's like a crazy. You couldn't imagine it in these days. But yeah, just arriving in the UK now, I didn't know. My dad was there to pick us up with his brother and I didn't know them right, because they left when I was nine years old. So I was following this flight attendant out of the airport because she was the only person I knew and then they had to find me and call me. So it was, yeah, it was a lot I remember. Just I guess it was significant enough for me to have retained these memories.
Speaker 1:You meant nine months old, right? Because I think that's what? Yes, nine months old. That's just incredible. So where did you end up going to university?
Speaker 2:So I ended up going to university in the US. So shortly after independence we went back to Zimbabwe as a family which again was another interesting thing because it was just after independence we were going to these schools that were that used to be reserved for white people, and so now black kids were going there, and so there was was this a lot of stress on the system. The teachers, who were mainly white, also were, I think, maybe having their own mental health episodes at the time. Transition was a lot and it wasn't. It was again an interesting few years of the country were trying to settle into this post-apartheid, post-indindependence world. I started primary school in the UK by the way.
Speaker 2:I left. I started school in the UK and I left when I was about seven or eight years old to go back to when we went back to Zimbabwe. So I did come back to Zimbabwe with this funny little accent, probably from East London because that's where we lived. So that also made me a little weird to everyone the black kids were like why do you talk like that?
Speaker 2:The white kids were like why do you talk? So I was a bit weird, yeah. So then finished primary school in Zimbabwe and then went to secondary school there. And I didn't actually finish secondary school. I went to the US before the end of my last year, and mainly because I didn't want to do A-levels. I just thought they were so constraining. I didn't know what I wanted to do in my life and I thought it was really unfair to have 16-year-olds decide what they want to do. And I found out about the liberal arts system in the US and how you get time to kind of figure out what you want to do, and I was like, ok, that's the system for me, right, and so that's how I ended up at university there, so your parents allowed you to make that choice.
Speaker 2:Yeah my dad. Unfortunately, my mom passed away when I was 16. But yeah, my dad was very much he was OK with it.
Speaker 1:OK, so what was that experience like for you moving to the US?
Speaker 2:okay with it. Okay, so what was that experience like for you, moving to the US? The move is always something that's very stressful and impacts someone's life I think, quite a lot, especially across a move across the world, basically by yourself at age 18. So it was an interesting time. It took me time to settle down, but I enjoyed the school. This was Clark University in Worcester. I liked the school, I made some very good friends, and it was also it was a very interesting time in the US too, because I remember I arrived around the time that Bill Clinton was campaigning right for his first term, and so it was just interesting watching the whole thing unfold. You know, coming from where I came from and the history of the country.
Speaker 1:So what did you study at Clark University? Good question.
Speaker 2:So initially I thought I would study. It was like women's studies I thought I was interested in, then international development, and at some point I was just like I don't know what I wanted to do. But the great thing about Clark is that they let you self-design a major, and so that's what I ended up doing. I just cobbled everything together and I think the major was called the politics of international development or something. That's what I liked about the school in the first place, besides the fact that it had a lot of international students.
Speaker 1:So did you do your MBA straight after or did you go work first?
Speaker 2:I went home to Zimbabwe and I worked so I got into banking and it was a bit of a strange twist of fate but I got into banking, for my first job was a trainee assistant manager in corporate finance of a merchant bank which was then, which then at the point, at that point, had a shareholder, was a major shareholder with MR Ostro and now it's Ned Bank. But yeah, that was my first job in Zimbabwe. Then I had a couple other jobs before that and then I mean after that, and then went to do my MBA At Wharton. At Wharton, yeah, I went to do my MBA at.
Speaker 1:Wharton. So what was your career like right after business school?
Speaker 2:So after business school it was straight into private equity for a company which at the time was called Emerging Markets Partnership and there were an early investor in emerging markets, backed by the World Bank amongst other development finance institutions. It was set up by former World Bank guys. So we. So basically I joined the Africa fund. They had a number of funds Africa, asia, latin America and so I joined the Africa Fund. They had a number of funds Africa, asia, latin America and so I joined the Africa Fund. And then, after I joined, a couple of years after I joined, the Africa Fund team spun off and did a buyout. They ended up setting up a new company called Emerging Capital Partners and that's yeah. So that's an ecp is the name that most people know in the market private equity.
Speaker 2:yeah, so I I joined ecp straight after graduation now, so that was 2003 basically, and I was in the washington dc office for a while. Then my husband and I might have met my husband and I. I met my husband at Wharton. We decided to move back to Africa and he was trying to set up a business there and we figured the soft landing would be to move to Joburg first. So I moved to the ECP Joburg office for a few years and then we decided to move to Nigeria because the business he was trying to set up was in Nigeria.
Speaker 2:In all of this I was the one who was kind of convincing him because at ECP I started traveling quite a bit across Africa. So it was the first time for me to go to West Africa. I'd never been to West Africa, but to be able to I'd been to East Africa, parts of it, southern Africa, but it was for me coming to Nigeria and it was the time when MTN was really hot and seeing what was happening in the economy. I remember going back to the States and saying to my husband look, there's a lot of stuff happening and we may be missing out on opportunities, deciding to stay here. It took a while, but we did. We ended up moving.
Speaker 1:So you're now living in Nigeria? What year are we in when you're in Nigeria?
Speaker 2:So we moved here in 2009. I actually moved here before my husband did. So that's what 16 years in October or September. So I came to Nigeria working for AFC. So that's what 16 years in October or September. So I came to Nigeria working for AFC Again, a soft landing, right. Yeah, it was a great experience. I liked what I was doing Good people, good work, and it's nice to see it now because infrastructure takes a long time. So some of the projects I was involved in that only were built and completed after I left. Yeah, it was like I said, it was a good, a very good experience, and it's, together with the private equity experience I think, has been really helpful and informing my views of what my foods should be and our strategy. But I had for years, even before AFC, I had for years wanted to build something. It just it wouldn't go away yeah.
Speaker 1:So you knew you wanted to build something, but you weren't sure what. So how did the idea of my come about?
Speaker 2:so we had my partner, nana and I had known each other since I joined ECP. That was in 2003. She was working there as an analyst and then I joined after my MBA. So we became friends from that experience and during that time she introduced me to Chitose sauce, which I'd never tried before and I loved it. She introduced me and another colleague of ours to it. So we loved it so much we would have cooking sessions her place or to make some right so that we each had enough for ourselves. But with that, you know, it was one of those things that just kind of stayed with us for years afterwards.
Speaker 2:And when, at point when I ended up in Nigeria working for AFC, she moved to Nigeria, still with ECP, and we were sitting at my dining room table and being like I was talking about wanting to build a business and we were like we've been, we've been fighting over Chitoh and bonding over Chitoh for years. Why don't we look at doing something related to African food? But there weren't products like your pasta sauce that give you some level of authenticity but make it easier and quicker, more affordable to do what you need to do. So that's what we tried to tackle. We were like look, let's look at seeing if we can do something like this.
Speaker 2:And we started messing around with different iterations of a jollof rice kind of mix and we have taste tests and all that kind of stuff done, and we were looking at the jollof being like a powder mix and it just wasn't coming out the way that you would want it to. And we had like taste tests with friends and family who are notoriously biased and give you really nice answers, and even they were like no, it doesn't taste right. We knew that it wasn't going to work. So we ended up just saying, ok, look, while we try and figure this one out, let's launch the shit talk, because the thing that they did love was the shit.
Speaker 2:Or and it's the thing is, it's a well-known kind of condiment right in Ghana where, if you go to, a restaurant you ask for black pepper, they'll give you shit or sauce and everyone's moms or aunts make their kids the shit or to take to boarding school and all that kind of stuff. It's very well known in Ghana but not known here. But the flavors in it are very West African. You can take them to any country in West Africa. People will pretty much recognize those flavors, even actually Southern Africa there's a bit, although we don't eat that much pepper. So what we realized when people tasted it? They loved it and they were like, oh, I'm gonna have it with my yam or I'm gonna do this, and so that's what made us launch it and that was the beginning of amai.
Speaker 1:How did you guys settle on the name and what does amai? Yeah?
Speaker 2:that was the process, I think. We had a lot of names, a lot of options, like we, that were just not working. And then one day I suggested Amai. It means mother in Shona, a Zimbabwean language, my language, right, and it was acceptable. So that's how we settled on it. We liked the meaning, obviously because we were mothers. Our third partner, oname, a Nigerian woman, is also. She's a mother of three. Nana from Ghana is a mother of three. Nana from Ghana is a mother of three. You know me at the time I was a mother of one but now mother of two.
Speaker 1:We were like, okay, this works, this kind of works for us, your three co-founders, it's been what like 10 years since you started this business. I'm always very intrigued by co-founder dynamics and relationships, and I wonder what it's been like for three of you over this last 10 years building this yeah.
Speaker 2:Look, I think it's never an easy ride, whether you're doing it by yourself or with other people. Right, building a business anywhere in the world is never an easy ride, and especially in a place like Nigeria or Africa and Nigeria, right. So we've had our ups and downs. That's the truth of the matter. We've been asked by investors male investors how do you guys get on? Because women notoriously argue with each other and we're like rolling our eyes or whatever. But for us, I think, the main thing is that it's not consensus based, our decision making. At the end of the day, it's been like the three of us. So if two support, then the other one accepts that it has to go ahead. So that's the first thing, and then the next thing is that we all agree and accept that the decisions we all make are for the good of the business and that the business comes first. So, yeah, it's been like I said.
Speaker 2:It's not been easy. We've had our ups and downs. We've been able to, I think, been easy. We've had our ups and downs. We've been able to, I think, navigate a few you know challenges and come out of it, learn from it and come out of it. But we're still navigating and we're still learning, because the business changes right. So new things come up and new challenges come out of them. I think that's another. It's not like I can settle back and say, oh, we're all set.
Speaker 2:Everything works like clockwork, but I think we have developed an understanding of each other and the support that we need to be able to do what we need to do. Yeah, I think that's where we are Fantastic.
Speaker 1:So, talking about change, when you started this, when you guys started this business, what were your initial goals? What was your goal in setting up Amayi Foods? And I want to then come to compare it to what the company does today, but just taking the first step, what was your goal when you started Amayi Foods?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So this is an interesting question because I've I've come to realize now, after 10 years of entrepreneurship, that there's always this when you read articles about successful entrepreneurs, they're like this person had a clear vision of what they wanted to do and they executed on it right, yeah and then, exactly as an entrepreneur, you're like why, why don't I have this?
Speaker 2:what's wrong with me and why does my vision keep changing? Which is exactly what it's supposed to do, because you adapt to new circumstances. Right, you realize something's not working. Oh, I thought that this is what we were going to do, but it's not working. Right, I made some assumptions that were not right, were not correct. I need to go back to the drawing board.
Speaker 2:So, look, I think we've always wanted to elevate African food. Right, that was our whole thing. Like, african food should be sitting at the same level as Chinese food, globally right, indian food, italian food, french, whichever one? Right For us. We have so much to offer and it's a huge continent, so really different kind of dishes, right From Cape to Cairo, whatever, to quote an infamous colonialist. So we always wanted to do that, and that kind of remains the same. But what we realized over time, you know what? At the time we launched the Shytor source, we wanted to have a mass market product. We realized that it was important for us to have a mass market product with a big population, right? So you want to be able to have a product that appeals to a good number of the population so you can make some money and then to roll out other products on top of it. And I think the way that we looked at our product is that there should be bases for a number of different types of foods right, dishes, rather not foods. You've got like tomato, tomato pepper mix. That can be a base for jollof, but it can also be a base for stew. Do you know what I mean? It can be different things. So that has remained the same in what we want in terms of versatility for our products. But what has changed now?
Speaker 2:The Chitose sauce was our major product when we launched. We quickly found out that it was a very rich product to be targeting the open market. We were selling 25 grams of shito sauce in a sachet for 50 naira and it sounds cheap. It sounded cheap at the time to lots of people. The only person who was like that's expensive was a lady who was in marketing at Nestle. She completely understood that 50 naira, what 50 naira meant to a person at the time. And you know for sure 50 naira at that time could buy somebody a whole pack of tomato paste right, which they could now use to make jollof rice a pot of jollof rice 70 grams at the time of tomato paste to make a pot of jollof rice, 70 grams at the time of tomato paste, to make a pot of jollof rice for four people, whereas we were selling a condiment for 25 grams. That was single use only, although people did use it for other things. They used it to season meat and rice and everything. But it was. When you start comparing what people can do, you understand.
Speaker 2:So the shit toes no longer our main product. We had to retool. We stripped down. We had a pipeline of products. Most of them were like ready to cook or ready to use, ready to use or ready to eat. We understood after talking to distributors, et cetera, that our products, the market, was not ready for that. Right, what the market wanted was a product that they could cut down the time and cost of preparing a meal, but allowing their own customization. So that changed. Right. So our major products right now are tomato paste and tomato pepper paste. Right. So our major products right now are tomato paste and tomato pepper paste. Right, which we sell across the country, right 29 states and mostly in the traditional markets. Right At the time we were in mostly what they call the modern trade.
Speaker 2:So the supermarkets like ShopRite and Spa were the only ones, just right, who were taking our products, and they really account for less than 10% of retail volumes in the country. It was very limiting for us and we couldn't break through to the open markets, which accounts for 90% of the retail volume. So that has changed and then also our view has broadened beyond elevating African food. I think what we came to understand is that in order for us to do anything successfully in this market or any other African market, right, first of all there has to be. There has to be, because we depend so much on local ingredients. There has to be. There has to be, because we depend so much on local ingredients. There has to be some kind of partnership with farmers, with aggregators, to make it work, and a partnership that is long-term and sustainable. So we don't want, at the end of every season, to be running like the new season, to be running after new farmers, et cetera. So that's what we realized, and we realized that not as a way of, oh, we need to make an impact, but that's actually.
Speaker 2:Initially we were like that's kind of the only way we make money out of this long term. Right, if there's some sort of a win-win right and then, by the way, oh yeah, it has this great if we structure it, it has this great impact on the communities, right, that can actually change people's lives and make create real prosperity. And so that was another thing that's really evolved for us. It's become our understanding of it and how we want to do it has really evolved versus just okay, we're buying from small scale farmers, right. So that kind of also has shifted.
Speaker 2:And then, also connected to that was the need for us to not just elevate African food but to now claim more value from African products.
Speaker 2:And if you look at any cosmetic product in the US, right odds are it's got cocoa butter in it or shea butter, right, which comes from Africa, and we are selling this unprocessed right and somebody else is processing and making the money. So for me, for us, we really felt that, look, at the end of the day, we have got to. If we're setting up sort of the infrastructure to buy inputs for our retail products right, like the tomato from small scale farmers, then why not now build on that to actually process commodities right that we can now sell for greater value on the international market? So just to give you an example sesame seed If you're selling, if you're lucky, you get about an 8% margin on raw sesame seeds, right on processed sesame seeds. But if you now process to cold pressed sesame oil, which is in great demand in China, japan, other parts of Asia, that margin increases to 40%. We're really leaving a lot of value on the table. As Africans, I think that's also a huge part of the strategy that's changed for us as Amai.
Speaker 1:This is so interesting, very insightful. Thank you so much for sharing that Kutai. So in terms of your goal to reach the mass market. So you were sharing earlier and you said how, when you initially started, you were in the grocery stores and all the shops. So where are? Your products sold today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've actually been able to break into the mass market, so 99% of our sales are basically into the traditional market today.
Speaker 1:So, in terms of manufacturing, where are you manufacturing and what has that process been like for you guys at Amayi Foods?
Speaker 2:in Lagos and so we manufacture from here. I think, look, it was a very steep learning curve for us. Over the years it's been a very steep learning curve. I think the last few years we've been able to assemble the right team and with the right kind of approach, right kind of attitude, and that has really helped us significantly. It's taken some time and I think as an entrepreneur, sometimes I look back, I blame myself at times, right In the first few years we would spend quite a lot of time on culture and trying to build a company environment that people enjoyed working in. We appreciate team members right. But then a few years into it it became about firefighting right and survival and much less focused on culture. But in the last few years we've been able, fortunately, to focus more on that and not just focus on creating the culture but also the kind of person who fits into this culture.
Speaker 1:So today you have five products and you're distributing across I think you said 29 country states in Nigeria. What was that process like for you in scaling your distribution network and are there any key lessons that you've learned in the process of scaling across Nigeria?
Speaker 2:Yeah, look, we've learned a lot of hard lessons. I think I think we started trying to scale up too quickly, as in going into too many places at once, and so that really caused problems for us initially. We're now being a bit more strategic about it. So, for each kind of area, when we say 29 states, you can have somebody in Kano, but dealing with Australia, several states when we say 29 states, right, we're not saying that we have distributors, one distributor in each and every one of those states, but we could have somebody in Kano covering several states, if you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:So we have we've been a lot more strategic about it, so that's been very helpful. We had to learn lessons in quality and seeing our product out there, because tomato paste is a fragile product in many ways but trying to make distributors understand how you keep it you know what I mean the conditions that you keep it in, et cetera. So, yeah, there've been quite a few hard lessons. I think for us, the main issue now, which has been our main issue for a while, is capacity to be able to actually scale up further. We've struggled with that for a few years, which is why we're now looking at this acquisition as an opportunity to address that.
Speaker 1:When you guys started this business, did you leave your job straight away, or did you, or was this a side project for for a while before you?
Speaker 2:you died in yeah, it was a bit of a for me it was a bit of a side project. We were working on it before I left afc, in the sense that we were doing developing the products and doing the taste tests, but I it was after I left afc, in at the end of 2013, that I now I left my job Nana and Oname did not, but I left. I had left anyway because I had this need to build something. So I had taken the decision that I was going to leave and focus on the business. I had my second daughter in 2014 and then it was towards the end of that year that we started again really working on it.
Speaker 2:And so yeah, I did leave my job, it was a big deal like that.
Speaker 1:How did you guys raise the initial capital to start the business?
Speaker 2:We funded it ourselves initially from our own savings. We were able to do quite a lot until about 2018. That was the first time we got third-party funding in at the time. Yeah, it was about. We funded it for about two to three years for ourselves.
Speaker 1:And what has fundraising been like? Look, it's been tough.
Speaker 2:Nigeria is tough although it shouldn't be as tough as other places because of the population but it has been tough. Both Nana and I are from private equity backgrounds and we thought it would be a lot easier. We ended up realizing that it's pretty hard, especially if you're targeting people who don't understand FMCG. You know what I'm saying and how the buildup, et cetera. So it was tough just getting that initial money in and it's been tough raising in general. I think what I think has helped us is when we look at, for example, this acquisition of this company that we're trying to do. That has been able to attract interest of larger players because it is a larger ticket size Do you know what I mean Versus a smaller play like a MyFoods. So that has been able to attract attention. But yeah, I think it's just tough all around.
Speaker 2:We were at some point competing with tech. If you remember the tech bubble, nobody wanted to know about you unless you were tech related, unless you were tech enabled. Yeah, enabled, tech enabled. And then a friend was saying who owned like a retail business was saying the problem with our businesses is that people think they understand it right, so they want to go through the numbers and all sorts of things, but when it comes to tech, they don't really understand it. They just want to follow the bandwagon. We were really struggling with that, competing against that, but look, at the end of the day, people still need to eat. That's our view.
Speaker 1:So, in terms of your value chain and the local farmers that you source produce from, what has it been like building that network and sustaining it? Because I think I read that they're all the way.
Speaker 2:Most of your suppliers are in northern nigeria, so we have two sets of suppliers, some in the southwest right, and we initially were in contact with them, put in contact with them by GIZ, the German development finance institution, under a program called the Nigerian International Competitiveness Program. So they are the implementation partner, so they're the ones who've helped us, held our hands and put us in touch with these farmers in the Southwest. We still have relationships with those farmers, so that's, we continue with that. The Northern farmers. It's actually been through aggregators and that's what we're building out now.
Speaker 2:And you know, now to have a direct link with those farmers so that we can we know what we're growing or we can at least, rather we can have them grow what we need, to our specifications and the quantities that we require, right? So that's what we're presently building out right now, and ostensibly that infrastructure is for us, for the inputs that we need for our products. But this is where the infrastructure play comes to me. In my mind, whatever we're building out can also handle other commodities, right. So we're not just looking at one, a single commodity cycle, right, and our own inputs. But if you can dry tomatoes, you can dry chilies, you can dry garlic, ginger, you can dry hibiscus right, they're just different. For me, I think the main thing is to make your infrastructure as, first of all, modular as possible and make it multi-use to be able to sweat out as much as you can from it.
Speaker 1:Right. So how do you keep your prices low or reasonable?
Speaker 2:enough for the mass market. Yeah, it's been a struggle. I think for us, import substitution sourcing our inputs locally has been what has helped us. That has enabled us to basically make products that are affordable but also profitable for us. That has enabled us to basically make products that are affordable but also profitable for us.
Speaker 1:Are you able to talk to us a bit about this planned acquisition? You've mentioned it twice.
Speaker 2:I know, yes, I can. I can't mention any names, but I can mention the rationale for it.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But yeah, look, we initially thought we were going to scale up organically, so raise money, build our own factory from scratch, etc. But a few years ago we started talking to a company about contract manufacturing for us and then those talks evolved into a potential acquisition the kind of the company itself does similar products to ours plus additional products. So it makes sense in that way that we have a scale for existing products but we also get new products, which helps us to diversify. It has a really good management team, which we would have. Probably we would have had to look for those kinds of people anyway. We're excited about that. Anyway, we're excited about that.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, we, for us, it kills several birds with, you know, just a few stones. It makes perfect sense for us. We know enough about manufacturing in Nigeria now that we know that you don't just build a new factory and then flip the switch and everything is working right. It takes a while to optimize a factory. So for us, we like the idea that this factory is already in existence. They do, you know what I mean. They do what we do. They do it at a bigger scale, and then this now creates the platform for us to do a number of different things when I mentioned about the commodity processing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're also very much interested in nutritional nutrition commodities, which are the like the. I don't know if they're ready to use therapeutic foods that are used to treat children experiencing severe acute malnutrition. So that's one area that we very much want to be in and we're looking at different parts of the value chain, but they all fit in very nicely with the commodity processing that we're looking at doing, and then also this acquisition, because the target company can actually manufacture the nutrition commodities.
Speaker 1:Is this still in Nigeria? Still in?
Speaker 2:Nigeria. For us, the other opportunity is with the Naira devaluation. Nigerian products are extremely competitive right now Fantastic. So we want to be able to take advantage of that too. So that is again the target company has products that can be exported into the region. We, if we have scale as a MI, can do the same. But yeah, again, it's something that we're very excited about.
Speaker 1:So what has raising money for this acquisition been like? So?
Speaker 2:this. As I've said, it's attracted more attention because it's a bigger ticket size, right? It's your players, like private equity companies etc. Are a lot more interested in something that's $10 million or $20 million versus $500,000 or $1 million, right?
Speaker 2:So it's helped us in that sense that our private equity background has also obviously helped us a lot in that in structuring of it and also look it all comes back full circle the contacts, the relationships that we've built over the years with other players in the private equity industry in Africa. Nana and I are worthy amongst the first women to be doing it in Africa and so, yeah, it's actually really tapping into our whole network. That kind of has helped us and the network that we have built. These are people who understand these kinds of transactions. Yeah, yeah, so it's not been easy. I wouldn't say it's a walk in the park, but it's still. It's moving, it's progressing.
Speaker 1:So, based on your experience your previous experience in PE and then just building this business over the last 10 years what kind of investments do you think that we need to support the growth of the agricultural value chain across the continent?
Speaker 2:Look, it's for me we can talk in broad generalities like oh, infrastructure, right, but the thing is, I think when we do that we can make the problem so big it's really difficult to grapple with. My view and maybe it is a bit more of an infrastructure view is to make investments as modular as possible.
Speaker 2:So if you're going to be talking about storage right, it should be storage, which is obviously. We know that lack of storage is a huge problem in terms of post-harvest losses right, but make it storage that can be utilized for multiple commodities right Over different seasons, right, different seasons, yeah. And then it has to be a combination. You invest in something that has a combination of big off-takers to provide, like, base volumes, but you can also have small farmers having access to it. Right To me, that's the kind of investment that would be good for storage, for some processing. But then there's some things you can't run away from.
Speaker 2:Carno lagos railway yes, that is like a no-brainer, right. Unfortunately, with that, unless it's given as a concession to a private long-term concession and that private player knows they've got guaranteed volumes from people, which shouldn't be difficult, it's not going to work, but that in and of itself would reduce so much of the headache of transportation. So those are some of the areas that I would think that people should invest in, again, companies like ourselves. I would say obviously, people should invest in us, because that's where kind of the real change is happening, right, and that's also where the real returns can happen too. It's just that it is a high touch investment. You're not sitting down and saying I'm going to contribute corporate governance, which was what we used to love saying in private equity, we'll bring corporate governance to the table. It's a lot more than that, but yeah, for me they're the individual investments. And then there's shared infrastructure that can be done on storage, logistics, and there's some things just like the railway, that just needs to be dealt with, and that's probably a PPP partnership.
Speaker 1:And I'm really excited about your acquisition, really excited to see how that goes and just wondering where you see the company in the next five to seven years. So what's next for Amai?
Speaker 2:So if we do, the acquisition successfully, then that will lead us to eventually become probably the largest African female founded player right in the FMCG industry food related in Nigeria right. So that would be very exciting for us, but obviously we're not doing it just for that. For us, it's the anchor asset in the broader strategy which I've mentioned as we go along. But for me, five years from now, I have got a strong FMCG platform right, having started off with this acquisition. But it's possible for us to roll up additional companies that would be basically geographically diversified right. So not just Nigeria makes sense in West Africa because it has got the economies of scale right that many other countries don't have. We could roll up other companies, but we have a solid FMCD business with brands that occupy number one and two in the markets, whatever market they are operating in.
Speaker 2:We have built out the nutrition commodities business and we're a supplier, both locally and regionally and internationally, which ties into what UNICEF believes Nigeria should be doing not just supplying for itself but also being a global supplier. And then we have got a solid commodity processing business which enables us to. We've picked a number of key commodities. We have long-term arrangements with buyers in different parts of the world. We are known as a mine for our quality and consistency when it comes to producing those inputs. So that's where I see it. In five years' time, we plan to be a $100 million company. 5-7 years time, that's the goal.
Speaker 1:That's clearly more clarity than you had when you started 10 years ago.
Speaker 2:Yes, a lot more.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. I really do wish you all the best with that. In wrapping up, I tend to ask my guests two questions, and one is a reflection and one is for advice. So, in terms of reflecting, just looking back at all you have built over the last 10 years with your co-founders, I wonder what you would say if I asked you what your proudest moment so far has been. What would you say? That is, that is gosh, it's hard.
Speaker 2:I think it's probably a tie between our products when our products roll like the roll off the line, and we've made this really good quality product that we have as founders ourselves. Our view is that we don't sell products that we don't use in our own homes. Right, we wouldn't give you products that we wouldn't give our own children. So for me, there's level of pride in that, but there's also a real level of pride in the team. It's just for me, I think it's something that's yeah, I didn't think it was possible, because people finding the right people, especially in a place like Nigeria, is really so difficult. So I'm enormously proud of the team that we've been able to build. I'm proud that we've built something right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because that is what I wanted to do at the end of the day day, the fact that I have team members whose outlook has changed because of their involvement in Amai Foods, and if they go and work from somewhere else, I think that they will continue to grow. That is also, to me, building, in a way. Yeah.
Speaker 1:In terms of advice. What advice would you give to other women who are building and scaling businesses in Africa?
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially African women, we think that we can do it all the time. I think we're raised to get on with it. Do you know what I'm saying? I don't know how to describe it and I think that it's great, gives us a lot of energy and determination, tenacity and resilience, but at the same time, I think it's important for us to always remember that person inside and what you need to.
Speaker 2:If you need to regroup, right, you need to rest, you need to refresh, there are many things that you have to recognize your needs and you have to take care of those needs for you to be able to actually continue to operate. And the thing is, it sounds like a bit of a luxury and I think for many female entrepreneurs, it is, you know, because it's life. It's a matter of life and death or like it's their livelihoods, right, but whatever small thing you can do to take care of yourself, I think it's really important. This is a job that affects wealthy men being a founder and an entrepreneur, right. You hear all sorts of things about mental health issues there. When you now think of your average African woman entrepreneur, right, who is not sitting necessarily at the top of the social socioeconomic ladder, right. We have to let's acknowledge that and do what we can to take care of ourselves while we build.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. Take care of yourself while you build. I like that. So where can people find Amayi Food Products and how can they engage with your brand?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we are mainly just distributing in the open markets across Nigeria, so it would really be at an open market near you. We do have some retail presence at shops like Ebanor and Just Right in Lagos Spa in particular. But if people do want to engage, I encourage them to check out our social media, myfoods underscore ng that's on Instagram, Facebook and X, and then also our website, wwwamyfoodscom, and you can find contact details there. We also have a LinkedIn page, amyfoods, so you can find contact details there. If you want to place an order for something and yeah, that's probably the easiest way, but besides the going to the local markets or if you want to know which local market you know it's available, the products are available there.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, kizia. This has been a great conversation. Oh, no, you're welcome. Thank you for having me conversation. No, no, you're welcome. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much for listening. If you're not already subscribed, please do so on Apple, spotify or wherever you get your podcast, and don't forget to leave us a review so we know how we're doing. I'm Akego Okoye and you have been listening to African Business Stories.