Food Processing: Weekend Adventures

“I am not interested in making money, I just want to help you people.” That is the kind of kindness that we have come across on Saturday morning. This is Heyford, the head of a gari processing venture. He walked us through the various steps involved in gari processing – from peeling and grinding the cassava to pressing and frying it. He makes his money by renting out the pressing and frying equipment to women. These women let us try and walk a mile in their shoes and we attempted to copy their frying technique. Only when you try it yourself do you realize how much physical burden these women endure – for example, the women and their children are sitting right in the fumes of the fire. One girl was only 15 and was helping out her aunt during the weekend, another, an orphan, works full time. Heyford was very happy with the new iteration of the grater and is enthusiastic about advertising for us. He has suggested that we leave one grater with him so that he can show potential customers the product. However, he is not interested in becoming a distributor. For distribution he has recommended that we go to the commercial area alaba, where there are many agricultural shops. After Heyford, the group headed towards the center of Kumasi and went to the Central Market and XXX Market. XXX market is the biggest market in West Africa. We dove right into the tumult, careful to avoid the meat section. Rows and rows of tin-roofed stores where you can find anything from machetes, to Milo, to baptism dresses. We headed straight for the cloth section and the girls took their time in picking Ghanaian fabric. In the evening, we moved to the SMS Guest House on the KNUST campus (wifi! Hot water! Breakfast included!). We made groundnut soup for dinner and headed to bed.

On Sunday morning we packed up the Tro Tro, as we were heading to Konongo and the surrounding villages. Before, we met with Gabriel, the chef at the Engineering Guesthouse restaurant. We discussed possible uses for the grater in his restaurant, but he argued that his customers value handmade fufu over fufu made with a machine. He recommended that we visit local Chop Shops (small walk-in restaurants) , as they make more fufu and will have more use for the grater. Next, we headed to Konongo. In the center of town we met with Jerry (our liaison who lives in the town). We bought mangoes, breakfast food, presents for our guests, and ingredients to make boiled yam and palava sauce for dinner. Then, we made our way to the village of PKK. Suddenly, the scenery was a world away from the exhaust and dust of Suame Magazine. Green for miles. The first stop at PKK was a chiefs meeting. In the rural areas of Ghana you cant do anything in a village without the chief knowing who you are and what your mission is. Our chief's meeting was well visited, as we attracted many children from the surrounding houses. The only person missing was the actual chief. However, the welcoming ceremony went on without him, complete with Dutch liquor and a formal statement of our mission. Next, we walked to visit Auntie Ama and her family. We sat down with her, her son, and her husband and questioned them for almost two hours. The conversation proved vital to our venture, as we learned many things.

We now know that using the grater has reduced Auntie Ama's physical burden and increased her revenue, because other women pay to use the grater. However, it was difficult to find out for sure how much more cassava the family has been able to produce with the grater. Our hosts invited us to stay in the village guesthouse, which was a lot more luxurious than we had expected (electricity! A sink! A bed!). A village cook had prepared a dinner of palava sauce and boiled plantains, which we all agreed was the best dinner we have had in Ghana. Finally, we took the time to set up our anti-malaria nets and ended the day with a round of cards.

The food in the village just kept getting better the next morning – mango, egg, and bread for breakfast was a hit with everyone (our group has complicated dietary restrictions for the Ghanaian cuisine – vegetarians, vegans, gluten-free). To our surprise, Aunti Ama came by in the morning accompanied by a new potential customer: Auntie Akosia.

Auntie Akosia is Auntie Ama's neighbor and also a gari processor. She told us that she has great interest in owning a grater and would be ready to pay a down-payment of 25 GHC. After a short off-side team meeting we decided that Auntie Akosia was just the type of customer we are looking for. A great benefit of our deal with Auntie Akosia (we will deliver a grater to her on Thursday), is that her husband is a government extension officer (these officers are responsible for spreading news about and recommending new agricultural practices). Having a grater in this household will be a great sign to the rest of the community – it can act as a kind of endorsement. Auntie Akosia showed us her large farm where she harvests cassava, cocoa, and plantain. After biding farewell to the villagers, we drove back to Konongo to meet with agricultural shops. We made a new business contact, Seth, who sells products like pesticides and seeds. We gave him the whole spiel and Seth is now very interested in becoming one of our distributors. We have agreed to bring him a sample, so that he can test if he can sell it. A great thing about Seth is that he allows his customers to buy products on credit. This will allow us to achieve our SROI, as the rural women will be able to buy the grater even if they can not afford it at this moment. We had a lunch of fried plantains and beans, with dessert provided by Joe's family, who owns a bakery (Joe is another liaison that lives in Konongo). (In hindsight, as this post is being written on Tuesday, this lunch might not have been our best idea – stomach problems have become a little bit of an issue.) Next, we all drove to the tiny village of Adumkrum (about 300 people) to check on Auntie Howe and her grater. It turns out that Auntie Howe's machine had stopped working, because the other members of the community had been overusing it. We decided to take her machine back to ITTU and fix it up for her. Once we got back to KNUST, Ben surprised us with a dinner of mango and pineapple! A great reward for a great two days!