'We're marketing nutritious food to secure Nigeria'

• Published date: 20 January 2023
• Publication title: Nigeria - The Nation

To win the fight against malnutrition, agri-food entrepreneur Ifeoma Okonkwo insists that more Nigerians need to access affordable, nutritious and safe foods. Accordingly, the founder, Diche Foods, has transformed the start-up into a one-stop-shop for nutritious, safe and affordable foods. She shares the inspiring story of how she uses the start-up as a commercial platform to address the key challenge of access to products for consumers, access to markets for producers and access to information for stakeholders in the nutritious food value chain with DANIEL ESSIET.

Her belief that nutritious and safe food should be available, accessible and affordable to all across seasons and locations is unwavering. This must be why agri-food entrepreneur and founder, Diche Foods, a company that offers diverse nutritious and safe foods, stuck to her strategy of using conventional and innovative marketing tools and channels to bridge demand and supply gaps towards improving consumers'access to quality products and producers' access to markets.

'At Diche Foods, we carefully select and market products from trusted brands to consumers using innovative marketing tools and channels, thereby bridging demand and supply gaps,' Ifeoma said, adding: 'We understand that a key challenge faced by actors in the nutritious food sector is that of access; access to products for consumers, access to markets for producers and access to information for stakeholders in the nutritious food value chain. This challenge is what our team at Diche Foods aims to solve using a commercial platform.'

Ifeoma's innovative marketing tools and channels appear to have worked magic, literarily. Diche Foods, which she floated in October 2021, has, in a remarkably short time, transformed into a one-stop-shop for nutritious, safe and affordable foods.

The company, which is located opposite Trans Amusement Park, Ibadan, Oyo State, has been offering all classes of food, from staples to provisions, condiments, spices and even water to customers far and near.

Indeed, innovation is at the core of the company's impressive growth trajectory. For instance, when it, initially, started in October 2021, Diche Foods was about offering only nutritious products processed and packaged by the company directly for sale or promotion. However, few months down the line, the company realised that customers also needed to pick up other complementary items alongside what it was offering.

What this meant was that customers would still have...