Meet the Boss: Chinyere Chiadikobi, Molli Foods Limited

    Connectnigeria.com met up with Chinyere Chiadikobi of Molli Foods Limited. The company’s business is quite an interesting one. They bring in high quality food items and condiments from the village to the city, and specialize in selling roasted and barbequed delicacies such as guinea fowl, fish and turkey as well as a range of other products that can be found in the market. By the end of the interview, we were beyond inspired by this outgoing entrepreneur and her mouth watering native foods. CN: Tell us about Chinyere Chiadikobi. I am a vibrant young lady married and blessed with two beautiful children and I live in the Lekki axis of Lagos. I am an entrepreneur who derives joy in knowing I can satisfy the needs of my clients every day. CN: What does your business do and how does it meet people’s needs? CC: The concept of Molli Foods Limited was birthed from the need for food spices and ingredients with the local original content. When I moved to Lagos, going to the market for food spices/ingredients wasn’t a lot of fun. Although you find what you want, I immediately realized that you don’t get the original local ingredients like you find in the rural areas and because I like cooking and getting the flavor in my foods, I knew I had to do something about this. My first point of action was to engage some farmers in the rural areas and they all had the same issues with logistics; transporting these items was a major challenge. Molli Foods became the middle man. At Molli Foods Limited, we have all sorts of spices available from Nsuka pepper, Oron crayfish, Ado ogbono, Okpei from Nsuka, ukwa, palm oil from Enugu and the list is endless. Moli Foods has expanded so much that we also do local beverages such as neatly made kunu and zobo drinks, mouth watering barbecues like roasted guinea fowl, cat fish, and neatly made akamu/ogi amongst many other things.  We supply food stuffs to hotels and we export as well. CN: Was this an expensive business to start up? CC: Not exactly, I started Molli Foods Limited in 2010 with N40,000. This is four years later and I can see it has been an interesting journey but not without challenges. In the beginning, we lost a lot of money but it all served as a learning curve and my passion and determination kept me going. Now I can say that we have grown impressively.         CN: Do you have a lot of competitors within this industry? CC: There is no market for only one person, but my biggest and only competition is me. I constantly challenge myself. The key factor is that I keep up to date with the growing needs of my clients and ensure that I am always steps ahead. On a lighter note, I am a refined farmer and not everyone wants to do the dirty work. CN: What would you say has been your greatest challenge starting your business? CC: As you know, every business has its challenges and mine is not an exception. The major challenge I would say is in communicating with farmers who are not literate and getting them to understand that on time delivery is key. Though better managed now, logistics is also a major challenge. Initially, it was quite difficult because of the distance and cost. Another issue can be staff management; it can be really difficult to manage staff. Honesty is often an issue but then, the experiences have actually helped us improve. CN: What are your three greatest personal characteristics that help you in your business? CC:  Passion, determination, and hard work. CN: If you were given capital to start up another business tomorrow, what business would you start? CC: Smiles. I love being the refined farmer that I am, if given capital, I would still be the farmer. Our strategy for 2014 is to expand and diversify. We are working on our fish pond where we can grow animals organically without chemicals. The world is big on healthy lifestyles now and we are trendsetters. So yeah, where is this capital you are talking about? “Laughs”       CN: If a business genie was to give you three wishes what would they be? CC: With pleasure- farm, farm, farm, farm! CN: What time of the year are your profits highest? CC: You know this is food and people have to eat, but I would say festive periods and summer. I say summer because people travel and order a lot of items for their trip and to give to their families. CN: What are your general interests? CC: I love to cook and I love to travel. You must love to travel in my line of business.

To order food from Molli Foods Limited, contact Chinyere on 0806398277 or email her at mollijudy@yahoo.com. Deliveries can also be made if desired.