What started as a family meal has gradually turned into a commercial business entity, “Renny Foods”. Jessica Acheampong explains how the journey began.
It all started five years ago, when she decided to put cereals like “Tom Brown” and others on the domestic menu which usually got the appétit of next door neighbours whetting due to the sweet aroma of the dish in the neighborhood.
The proprietress of Renny of Foods decided to prepare her mixture on a small scale for customers for a fee but went into large-scale production due to the high patronage from around the countryside.
That is the story of Ms Irene Ofori Ghartey, Managing Director of Renny Foods, a local cereal-processing company in Accra.
According to her, she decided to produce cereals on a commercial basis as a result of the positive comments she received from people who enjoyed her cereals when she produced them at home.
The processed cereals do not include maize but they are tagged as “special” as they contain more than the three ingredients that other processed cereals have.
“My cereals contain five or more ingredients including rice, wheat, soya beans, beans and groundnuts,” she said.
Her flagship products, Renny Gari Mix and Renny Tom (a cereal and legume mix) are all produced with local raw materials which she buys from the market.
She said “I buy the gari, sugar, groundnut and the other ingredients from people that I have established relationships with on the market who are my main suppliers for my products.”
HOW RENNY FOODS IS SURVIVING
Renny Foods, according to Ms Ghartey, started with a capital of GHC300 while operating in her house on a small-scale level for friends and family members.
Her company, she said, received certification from the Ghana Standards Board three years later, which spurred her on to produce on a larger scale.
She explained that the company had to relocate operations from her house to its present location at North- Kaneshie.
As demand for her products increased she had to improve on her packaging from the use of sachets to containers to make them more attractive to meet the increasing needs of her customers.
Over the years her products, she said, had gained wide recognition due to the distribution channel which she said included “Shell shops, pharmacies, retail shop outlets and mother care shops in the country.”
Asked if she had encountered any issue of product counterfeiting, Ms Ghartey told the GRAPHIC BUSINESS she had personally not come across any of her products being counterfeited but said she received calls from people telling her of counterfeited products they had spotted in other parts of Accra.
“I sometimes receive calls from people telling me there are people in Weija using my label for their own products, but I have not seen any of such things, so as it stands now, it is all hearsay,” she said.
NBSSI SUPPORT
Ms Ghartey said she received diverse support from the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI) in diverse ways which she summed up to be “capacity building” over the years.
The board, she added, trained her together with other small scale business owners at workshops on book keeping, record keeping, food safety, marketing and other programmes to improve their capacity.
Another benefit she also told GRAPHIC BUSINESS, was her application for certification from the Ghana Standards Board. She said with her NBSSI certificate, the cost of application was slashed to about one third of the original price besides the easy facilitation she enjoyed for being registered with the board.
FUTURE PROSPECTS
According to Ms Ghartey, despite the various challenges she encountered in her business, she was optimistic her business would thrive and make several inroads in the near future. She said moving from her house to her current location was a sign of growth.
She however said her company was hoping to acquire bigger space for production and machines that could be used instead of the traditional way it currently produces her products.
These machines, when acquired, she said, could make her work easier and she would increase production.
Some of her challenges, she however said, included distributing her products to the various retailers on credit, and waiting to receive money after the sale of the products which was not the best.
She added tha raw materials were not sold to them on credit but after production she had to supply on credit which is very unfortunate.
Prices of the raw materials, she also explained, are sometimes increased without he knowledge of entrepreneurs which poses a problem with respect to the quantity of them that could be bought at a particular time.
The last challenge she mentioned had to do with the problem of staff in her company some them she said were temporary.
Ms Ghartey had this to say to all women, “Do not depend on government for jobs but rather start something, no matter how small it is and develop it as, the years go by.”
Renny Foods foods can be contacted on rennyfoods@yahoo.com
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