The African breadfruit – locally known as ukwa in the Igbo language – is an edible fruit grown and eaten mainly in southeastern Nigeria. The seeds of the fruit are consumed for their high nutritional value.
Chichi Eriobu, founder and CEO of Phronesis Foods, saw a gap in the market to sell processed and packaged ukwa products to consumers in Nigeria and beyond. She told How we made it in Africa about starting the business and shared the strategies that contributed to the company’s growth so far. Here are highlights from the conversion.
The product range
Phronesis Foods currently sells four ukwa products: dried ukwa, roasted ukwa snacks, ukwa poundo and ukwa flour.
Starting the company
Eriobu began the food processing company in 2016. Prior to that, she tried her hand at several business ventures – including trading with clothes, airtime sales, event planning and marketing – none of which performed according to expectations.
The inspiration to process and package ukwa came from her mother, who had retailed fresh ukwa seeds for more than three decades. Ukwa is not farmed on a large scale like conventional crops; instead, many families in southeastern Nigeria keep a handful of trees on their land. Eriobu’s mother bought the seeds and sold ready-to-cook ukwa to individual consumers.
