5 days Ago By Ifeoma Ononye
It is a very interesting and short story that I love to share anywhere I go. I was in a paid employment job at the time I conceived the idea to open a business called Firewood Jollof. We were in our office meeting and one of our colleagues was celebrating her birthday.
She told us she brought jollof rice and we were excited to eat the food. We also had expectations of how the jollof rice would taste. We wanted it to taste like that jollof rice we used to eat back when we were children.
Children that were born in the 80’s know what I am talking about when it comes to the geeat taste of our heritage way of cooking jollof rice. But when we put one spoon in our mouths, we were disappointed. It tasted like the regular jollof rice.
We said to ourselves that we are beginning to lose our heritage. Jollof rice used to be cooked on firewood. It used to be cooked in a traditional way that gives it a certain taste that cannot be rivaled.
In that room, someone said, if someone opens a business and calls it ‘Firewood jollof’, the person will make a lot of money. I put that name down in my jotter. I didn’t know what I would do with the name at that time but I knew I was not going to let that catchy name go.
I did a little bit of research and found out that there is demand for firewood jollof out there. I called my Mom and told her and she said, she has my back. That was how my mom, my sister and I started Firewood Jollof in 3rd May, 2016.
Now 8 years after, the firewood jollof business that started with just three people has grown to have a staff strength of over 120 and we will be hosting our first Firewood Jollof Festival. The festival is a way of taking preserving our cultural heritage of our traditional way of cooking a step further. We want to preserve this culture, so that the generation that is coming after us will know that there is a traditional way we cook jollof rice.
We are gradually losing our way of cooking to globalisation. Not just in cooking; even our cultural way of doing other things. We also want to have a flagship food festival event in Nigeria, where people look forward to visiting from both home and abroad.
We are in the era where climate change advocacy is preaching against emanating carbon from Firewood for cooking is gradually phasing it out. Also for health reason, because the smoke affects the eyes and sometimes the lungs because of inhalation. What measures are you taking to preserve health and how do you source the Firewood now that everyone is going for cooking gas? We have suppliers for our Firewood.
For the health part, we cook in a controlled environment. We also run tests for our staff intermittently. We make sure they are healthy.
In our company, our staff is our first customers. We treat them with a lot of care. and we have HMO for our staff.
There is something natural about cooking with firewood that makes it different. Try cooking with gas and cook same with firewood, there is always a difference, though we have our recipes which I can’t share. I was working with Etisalat Telecommunications, the one that left Nigeria.
I was in a department called Brands and Communications. I think that was why when I started my business, it was so easy to transition and position the brand. I didn’t leave my Salary job immediately.
I left two years after Firewood Rice Nigeria launched. I noticed that the brand was growing faster than I imagined and it needed my presence. So, I had to leave paid employment and focused full time on it.
Not even one regret! It is the best decision I have ever made. Oh, yes. I still join the cooking.
We have to do refresher courses every time, so that we don’t lose the recipe and we don’t lose the taste that people know us for. Sometimes, I take off the suits and I am the head chef. I do that as often as every two months.
Funny enough, I am not that passionate about cooking but God blessed me with mixing recipes. When I started Firewood Rice, I knew I had to be in the kitchen. So, I love it now.
I will say that I am a recipe specialist. I can combine recipes to give you the best flavours you can ever get. I don’t like to cook but I mix recipes.
I write down my recipes and give to the kitchen personnel. They work through that recipe to create the mouthwatering dishes we have. At your press conference, your guests were treated to something in the shape of a meat ball.
In fact, many thought it was puff puff or scotch eggs because of the shape, only for it to melt into the pallette as moulded jollof rice. How did you come up with that idea? That is one of our recipes and that is where innovation comes in. It’s is not all about eating the jollof rice that you know, we want people to know that they can eat jollof rice in different ways.
Food is whatever you say it is. Nobody has the monopoly to food. You can create food however you like.
I have no training. Its just pure passion and skill. I am gifted with combining recipes.
What I intend to do is teach people how to combine recipes. We are open to any brand that would love us to have a competition to prove the winner. Like I have said before, the answer to the jollof rice wars, is the Firewood jollof.
I belive that if they taste it, they will end all the wars. The idea for Firewood Rice was mine but I gave it to my mother because my mom has a fantastic way of cooking jollof rice. When I told her about it and we had our very first order, I had to go to work.
She was the one that built the first recipe. Firewood Jollof rice recipe is my mom’s recipe. The other recipes are mine.
I will be doing my mother, Mrs Bennett Enest Chukwueke, a disservice, if I do not mention her name. I read Geography and Regional Planning at University of Lagos. I used to sing but Firewood Jollof has taken my voice.
I can’t sing anymore. I also like travelling. To become an internationally recognised brand.
Yes! We have that in our books. We have sat down as a team that loves to help the environment to map out plans on how to acquire large expanse of land, where we can plant trees..
