She started her food processing business of beans flour already mixed with ingredients for easy preparation of moi-moi and akara by having to sell off her Blackberry Touch2 phone at give away price.

Today,   Anthea Peretu, an indigene of Ekeremo Local Government, Bayelsa State,   and a graduate of English Language from University of Abuja as well as a Diploma in Health and Physical Education from University of Nigeria, Nsukka, is making waves with her Moi-moi Expresso.

In this chat with Financial Vanguard, she talks about the joy, pains and frustrations of young entrepreneurs in Nigeria. Enjoy:

By JIMOH BABATUNDE

On what led her into food processing
Funny enough, I have worked in a number of places, but then, I did not feel fulfilled; I felt I needed to do something like a service to humanity because what gave birth to Moi-moi was my love for children and my love for cooking.

I realised that moi-moiand akaraeating culture in our homes today is fast fading away, because of the stress of preparing the moi-moiitself. Now, moi-moiexpresso like I said, is beans neatly cleaned and made into flour, mixed with onions, seasoning, crayfish and chilli.

This helps you prepare your moi-moiand akaraat the snap of your fingers, anytime of the day wherever, whenever.

So, I know that beans plays a major role in our nutrition and a lot of us think that protein is just the major nutrient we get from beans, but beans is one food or meal that comes with so much nutrients like vitamins, anti-oxidants, protein and even carbohydrate.

I also realised that for you to cajole children to like beans as many of them don’t like beans porridge, so I now thought of moi-moiand akara, especially moi-moi, because with it, you can do a lot of things with shrimps, fish or eggs, minced meat and whatever you want and this is healthy not just for kids, it is good for pregnant women, the aged, in fact, everybody.

I will tell you a wrap of moi-moia day will keep the doctor away. So moi-moiis the easiest way to get children to enjoy beans and akaraalso. That is basically what brought about moi-moiexpresso.

On how she was able to raise start-off capital
Funding is the major problem lots of SMES in Nigeria face. Affordability  of fund is one thing that we all suffer.

When the idea came, I honestly did not have a dime, I was as broke as a church rat, but I had the idea. And I had at the back of my mind that as I was thinking, the next person is thinking so I didn’t just lock up the idea in a box and wait.

I moved into action and what I did was to go to Eman Plaza here in Abuja, the only thing  I had was my mobile phone, a Blackberry Touch 2, which I bought some months back.
This was in September, 2011. I bought the phone for about N110,000 and I went to Eman Plaza and I traded my phone and got a very bad deal as the phone was bought off me for N35,000. But this did not deter me.

With the money made from the phone, I went to the market and bought samples of the various varieties of beans in the market and even went ahead to buy products of my competitors and I experimented.

I got to realise that it is not every variety of beans that comes out tasting the same after processing and there are different ways you can go about processing your beans that helps retain the quality and the taste .

In as much as there were other beans flour products in the market and I wanted to set myself apart, I had to come up with a product  mixed with ingredients, that is why mine has onions, seasoning, crayfish and chilli.

I experimented basically with friends and family before I got the final mix and then I started selling to friends and family, church members, going to exhibitions. That was how moi-moiexpresso story started.

But, I must tell you that it was not an easy journey; I am still on it as it is a long and interesting journey. I have had to cry,  smile and laugh in the course of the journey.

On the reception of the product in the market
I am grateful to God as it has been interesting. For one, my happiness is that people who have bought the product called to ask for   more, this shows that I have a premium product.

The demand increases by the day and I must tell you that it gives me joy to know that something I thought of can actually come this far and by God’s grace, I know it will go farther.
I do get orders from outside the country which is really exciting. I get calls from people I have not met before,  as my customer care number keeps ringing.

On number of staff:
I have three staff members and I work too. I do my mix myself because it is food and you cannot afford to be careless. The truth is that many people don’t even know where this is coming from so you have a reputation to protect.

On marketing of the product:
I do a lot of social media; a lot of marketing online. I participate in lots of exhibitions and fairs. I do talk to few supermarkets in the country and I have some distributors.
These are people who want to make extra money on the side, so they buy off me to resell, so the marketing of the product is still ongoing.

On challenges   being faced by SMEs:
Funding is a major challenge. I know the government is coming up with a lot of packages to assist entrepreneurs as we are working hand in hand with the banks, but I must tell you that they sound really sweet, but as an entrepreneur when you go down, things are not as sweet as they sound on televisions and the papers.

Sometimes you go to these agencies happily because you have an idea, the Nigerian factor comes to play and at the end of the day, they tell you that you are not fit to access the fund.

The regulatory bodies’ requirements most often, are too rigid, too stiff. You say you want to assist entrepreneurs but your guidelines don’t even show you are concerned about the SMEs.

What you require of big companies are same as what you require of small companies. For someone like me who traded my phone to raise money, you now tell me I need to get a big space!

I have come across young people with fantastic ideas, but because of how stiff these regulations are, they dropped along the way.
The truth is that these are ideas that can actually create jobs for a lot of people. I met a guy the other time, you need to see the type of starch he manufactures.

It was a good concept but lack of funding and the stiff requirement here and there got the guy frustrated. I know how many times I have shed tears but I wipe my tears and go on because of the passion I have and for the fact that I am not a quitter.

Honestly, I feel SMEs should have some concessions, I still feel government should through their programs get to the real SMEs. If you find out someone has a genuine idea and business, assist the person.

On machineries:
The ideal thing most times is to go online and you see good machines made in China, but when you think of the fact that you don’t have the money   to buy, you have to look elsewhere.

In the process of doing that, I got to find out that we have Nigerian agencies and even private fabricators   that fabricate machines in this country. So I can tell you that moi-moiexpresso is 100 per cent naija, it has no preservatives and the machines used were fabricated here by intelligent Nigerians, so for people who have intention of going into this kind of business, they just need to know the type of machines they need.

There are some government agencies people don’t even know about that are into machines fabrication and I wonder why it is so.