What inspired you to establish Phronesis Foods?
The idea of Phronesis Food was borne out of two different needs which came to fruition in 2016. Before then, I have done one-man business a few times. I basically tried different things which didn’t fly. I had always wanted to do things beyond me. This particular one came as a result of my conversation with God. I asked God what other business I go into and He said to me – “your mother’s business!” He said I knew the business like the back of my hand.
After that conversation, I called my mother; this was around May and June when Ukwa, as a seasonal food, was going out of circulation. Between July and September, Ukwa market prices would go up and if you don’t have storage, it’s going to be hard to sell. So, I had a conversation with my Mom on the prices and other things concerning the business.
I didn’t start selling immediately. Rather, what I did was tell people that I sell Ukwa even when I didn’t have one seed because I wanted to be sure that someone was willing to bet on me to even yield one customer to buy.
So, when I was sure that people would buy, we set out for business, and we had to work on storage because without it we won’t be able to be in business the way we want it. To build the kind of storage process that will enable us to have just dried Ukwa at that time yearly; that is, throughout the entire year, whether season or no season. And to achieve that, we will have to onboard existing suppliers; negotiate with them – whatever it was. But we found out at the beginning that it was not easy, at the end of the day, the only supplier we could onboard was my mother.
