Amaka Emmanuel-Makata is a circularity-focused business development and expansion expert, with an interest in sustainable consumption, production, and nutrition. Having founded Fresh County, she is leading change in the agricultural sector to reduce food waste, curb food insecurity, and increase nutrient-dense food intake. She speaks with IJEOMA THOMAS-ODIA, in this interview.
You are championing agric-tech, food waste reduction, and a food security advocate, tell us about this passion.
It all began when I noticed that farmers in the rural areas of our country are blessed with fresh produce but has minimal access to market, zero cold chain preservation and five percent fresh food processing solution thereby creating both food and wage loss. I saw this as a problem each time I traveled to a rural area and my hatred for wastage pulled me into proffering a solution. How can the farmers have excessive fresh produce in the rural areas to the extent that it is simply just wasted and people in the urban areas are turning to processed and canned foods with lesser nutritional value? This did not sit well with me so I created a path to bring freshness to the table. My passion is to reintroduce longevity to humanity by creating income for smallholder farmers, and helping health-conscious individuals and persons managing lifestyle illnesses to enjoy high-nutrient meals. 
Technology is at the forefront of our business to improve yield, efficiency, profitability, and overall sustainability. We use various world-class machines to preserve and process fresh farm produce and achieve value addition. It is a technology that enables us to extract milk from plants and also helps us reuse its waste to produce other nutritious value-added products. We are an agritech company that operates from farm to table and back to farm. Some of our waste products are reused as compost for farming and as feed for animal husbandry. In a nutshell, technology helps us limit waste, enables us to achieve circularity, and ensures nutritious, healthy, and sustainable food for all.
As an entrepreneur with more than a decade of experience, how easy was it for you to pivot and take on this path?
When I was 11 years old, my family travelled for Christmas from the big city where we lived to my village. In my village, for someone to get groceries, you have to walk 2.5km to our only market called Eke which happens to trade once in every four days. I saw that as an opportunity to make groceries available and make money. With permission from my parents and other children’s support, I built a small bamboo shop in front of our house, broke my piggy bank and started groceries on a table shop with my four-hundred-naira savings. I registered my first company during my NYSC year in 2004 but I wasn’t confident that I had sufficient experience to grow the business so it played small and by the second year, I took up paid employment. However, while at the job, I still continued to conduct small trading activities by the side from time to time.
Entrepreneurship seems to be a path I find interesting. My mother took this path. She was a manager at K. Chellarams in Kano State and owned a retail business where I had holiday jobs and apprenticeships during my secondary school days. My father worked with the Ministry of Education and also engaged in the transportation business. My childhood was surrounded by entrepreneurship. While I was in paid employment, I didn’t address only direct tasks assigned to me rather volunteered to take up more tasks and worked as if it were my company. This helped me learn more and gave me some good knowledge in people and enterprise management. When I was leaving paid employment, I was already in preparation to launch into entrepreneurship. So, I sought formal training in entrepreneurship from the Enterprise Development Center of Pan Atlantic University and was sponsored by Goldman Sachs to learn entrepreneurial management in the year 2012. It was during this training that I realised I was in a business I could not easily scale so I changed my line of business by focusing on something I had developed a passion for. This was how Fresh County was founded. To pivot in this path, my family background helped me, my work ethic while in paid employment helped me, and the formal business training, all contributed to making the journey possible for me by giving me knowledge of the platform I need to walk on
Nutrition and wellness is key to a healthy society. How can Nigerians at this point in the economy stay healthy on a budget?
This is the problem Fresh County Wellness Foundation has been designed to address by educating and empowering people especially in urban cities to curtail wastage of food and embark on agriculture to take charge of their nutrition and wellness experience. Urban gardening will help us grow fresh produce packed with vitamins and micronutrients around our surroundings. Each Nigerian can utilise the free land space in their surroundings to develop a garden. This will help reduce the food we need to purchase, also provide the nutrients required for our well-being, and reduce transportation carbon footprint.
What challenges have you been confronted with as an entrepreneur and how do you stay afloat?
There was very limited fund at the start-up stage, I had to bootstrap and took some loan from friends and family. As we progressed, most of our fund was plunged back into the business to enable us build growth. Managing perishable farm produce has also been a challenge to us, we had introduced technology and to started developing cold chain conveying and storage solutions to mitigate this. Another major challenge we face is power management; to mitigate this, 47 percent of our power needs are now drawn from renewable solar energy to reduce our carbon footprint in the environment and also aid effective preservation of fresh farm produce.
You also run a foundation focused on living healthy tell us about it.
Fresh County Wellness foundation was founded to promote wellness through nutrition and wealth creation. We are empowering women and youths in wealth creation and urban farming to address malnutrition and food insecurity. Growing and eating your food helps cut back on food waste and reduces the carbon footprint from food transportation. We shall commence capacity-building sessions on urban farming in September where women and youths will be empowered on the various types of gardening and on how to utilise urban waste for composting.
As a woman in business, what is your advice to other women navigating the terrain and trying to make meaning of their venture?
Seek education and mentorship in areas you lack knowledge. Make networking with like minds a part of your growth strategy. Learn to study business financials. Do not be stingy with salaries, employ good hands, and build a structure on which your business can thrive. Lastly, as a leader, you must develop good leadership skills for yourself and your team members.
What key lessons have you garnered over the years?
Hard work is essential to aid advancement in business. Integrity and good people’s management skill will bring you favour on a platter of gold. Building your leadership skills is very essential to grow a venture so that people can follow your lead voluntarily and proudly.
How do you combine your many sides effectively?
My business had an organic growth so in the beginning work life balance was barely in the picture. I had to wear multiple hats to push the growth of the business it was like war field without the option of failing. It was so intense that without the reminders on my phone, I could easily miss family engagements. However, after a few years down the line, I started recruiting staff that could take charge of various arms of the business so I could have a good level of work-life balance. Presently, I now follow a calendar plan where I still work intensely in the business but for an apportioned time so I can also give some time to myself, my family and my community.
What drives you for success?
Man is the most intelligent being on earth and I believe we are born to conquer so failure is not to be chosen. One could fail at one thing but succeed at another or one could fail at a venture at a moment and still succeed at that same venture at another time. What matters is that success is achieved in one’s life generally. Success to me is necessary in multiple aspects of my life such as spirituality, health, family, people’s relationships, and finances. Success is making a positive impact in society, wealth without impact is a failure in my sight. My goal is to build an impactful system that will leave behind an infectious story that my generation will be proud of. I want to create courageous footprints that will show the younger generations that with consistency, integrity, work, and prayers, it is possible to be successful in life.
What is your life mantra?
We are already here; this is life, so live it with others in mind and make it count. Find your purpose and make it paramount on your to-be-achieved list. Do not bear grudges, treat everything as temporal for no one lives here forever. Life is beautiful.
