Mrs Adaeze Okafor, the managing director and Chief Executive Officer of Rity Bakery is a woman entrepreneur who believes that partnership with financial institutions is a great motivator for business success.
In this interview, Mrs Okafor, speaks on the challenges and opportunities for Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria and how FCMB’s Sheventures, an initiative for women-owned businesses helped her to remain in business.
Who is Adaeze Okafor and what kind of business are you engaged in?
My name is Adaeze Okafor. I am an accounting graduate from the University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus. I worked briefly with UBA as an Assistant Cluster Control Officer during my NYSC year.
But after my youth service, I switched over to GTBank to continue with my banking career as a marketing staff in the commercial banking unit.
However, despite the attractiveness of the career I opted to resign from GTBank some years later to further my vocational education at the International Culinary Centre in the United States of America, where I earned a Diploma in Pastry.
When was Rity Bakery established?
Rity Bakery was established on the 1st of August 2013, when we commenced minor operations in Kaduna State with financial support from my mother. We registered the business with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) on the 18th of April, 2018.
Why did you venture into the bakery business, and how is it different from other businesses in terms of profitability?
I went into the bakery business because of my passion for food. That was in addition to the fact that I spent a large part of my childhood working in our family’s restaurant businesses, and I have always loved great tasting food. I believe food should be exciting such that your mind is blown when you taste it.
There is a lot that happens daily in the bread production process; from ensuring the peculiar taste of your product is sustained, maintaining 100 per cent hygiene in and around the bakery, adjusting to market forces such as currency fluctuations that affect the price of bakery inputs and most importantly, managing different classes of staff.
In comparison to other businesses, the bread bakery business must be done on a very large scale.
In a 12-hour production cycle, over 20,000 units of bread products are made, sold, and consumed by customers. Even at this high production rate by most bakeries, the demand for bread far outweighs its supply, thereby making it a profitable venture for anyone who is up to the task.
Do you see bakery business booming more in the next few years?
Yes, I envision more growth in the bakery business because we have a rapidly expanding population in Nigeria. This means a continuous rise in the demand for bread and every other food product.
Surviving challenges of COVID-19 outbreak in 2020.
In light of the reduced purchasing power of Nigerians, arising from our country’s economic decline and weakening currency, we have had to change our core business strategy and shift our focus to what consumers can afford. As a result, we now offer a range of products for every tier of society.
We have also improved our logistics and distribution chain to ensure that our products reach the customers more conveniently. We employ as many cost-cutting measures as possible. These include using more affordable energy alternatives for power generation and reducing the number of go-betweens in our distribution process to retain a more significant profit margin in the business.
And lastly, we rely on the support from FCMB and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to acquire much-needed machinery and other equipment.