Amaka Emmanuel 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.
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.
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 didnt 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
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Why are you flagging this comment?
I disagree with this user
Targeted harassment - posted harassing comments or discussions targeting me, or encouraged others to do so
Spam - posted spam comments or discussions
Inappropriate profile - profile contains inappropriate images or text
Threatening content - posted directly threatening content
Private information - posted someone else''s personally identifiable information
Before flagging, please keep in mind that Disqus does not moderate communities. Your username will be shown to the moderator, so you should only flag this comment for one of the reasons listed above.
We will review and take appropriate action.
Get the latest news delivered straight to your inbox every day of the week. Stay informed with the Guardians leading coverage of Nigerian and world news, business, technology and sports.
Follow Us