Learn From Her Story: 'Soup business changed my life for good'
People who are involved in restaurant business typically possess abundance of highly desirable traits and skills. They are very capable individuals who are naturally optimistic, creative, dedicated, highly motivated, action-oriented, and are not afraid of hard work and long hours to achieve their goals. Adewumi Ayo possesses these traits and that was why she was motivated to go into restaurant business.
It is common to see restaurants serving all kinds of delicacies in our society but rare to see one handling only soups. Her business, ‘Soup Paradise’ which has been in existence for long, supplying soups to mainly family members, friends and events, is starting fully this October.
“We started with supplying family members, friends and for events. We understand the fact that people are very busy, and they want their soups already prepared in freezers, so that they just get to the house and probably make a meal along with their soup, therefore we decided to enter the market,” she said.
Adewumi, an accountant by training, was motivated into the business because she did not want to be limited to her tribal soups as was the case when she was younger, but when visiting friends she was exposed to different Nigerian delicacies.
“I promised myself that when I get married, if my husband wants to eat a different soup every day for 31 days, I will make sure I prepare a different soup for each day.”
The 30-year-old mother of two also believed doing the soup business could serve as a tourist’s attraction on its own where both foreigners and locals can find different Nigerian delicacies under one roof.
“There are people who want their local soups and have nowhere to get it, especially in cities like Abuja, Lagos and Port Harcourt where most of the ingredients are not readily available, so the ‘Soup Paradise’ takes care of their needs.”
She specializes in making different kind of soups and stew from all parts of Nigeria. She said they are focusing on making at least 37 soups, covering the whole states of Nigeria including the FCT.
“We make the soups based on people’s specifications. There are some people who do not like salt or pepper, too much oil and other ingredients in their soups. So, we prepare it based on what the customer wants. We also prepare as the demand comes so the soups are prepared fresh,” Adewumi said.
Though she started her business with N50,000 but her soups and stew business proposal for the You Win competition won her the grant with which she is now making the business bigger. “I had never thought of taking loan for the business because I planned to start on a small scale which I did. This was the business plan I took to YouWin and I won.”
She did not acquire any formal training in catering but to boost her skill in making the soups, she invites individuals from different parts of the country to teach them how to prepare soups the way it is done in their places.
“We make soups like oha, nsala, miyan kuka, edikaikong, name them, through the training we receive from people. We have been able to do it excellently well and patronage is increasing on daily basis.”
With three part time staff, Adewumi said she will be recruiting permanent staff shortly since they are starting big time now, adding that the business is lucrative and there is always high patronage as people must eat and most people want to eat well.
“Food business doesn’t go out of fashion as long as we keep up the good quality. People patronized us at the experimental stage, even when we felt we were not ready to go commercial they were coming to patronize us,” she said.
As with any other business, she said some of the challenges they face is that some customers do not pay them after delivery while some may call or tell them to make certain soups and after they are done, they will say they do not need it anymore.
“Getting the ingredients is not too easy. In a business like this where we are trying to cover the whole country, some ingredients are hard to come by in this part of the country, as there is no excuse not to satisfy the customers as such ingredients must be on ground before customers’ requests can be met. At times, we have to send people to some states to be able to get the ingredients needed. There is a particular soup from Benue, we often do not get the ingredients here.”
She advised youths not to concentrate only on corporate jobs, adding that as entrepreneurs they could always apply whatever courses they studied in whatever business they set up.
The ‘Soup Paradise’ proprietor added that there is potential in all of us, only if we recognize and awaken it.
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