MADE IN SIERRA LEONE, BABY FOOD CEO: ADDRESSES AFRICA’S NUTRITION AND FOOD INSECURITY ISSUES

End all forms of malnutrition, including achieving, by 2025, the internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age.

Not your ordinary woman, but a passionate and caring mother who we crown the ‘Baby food CEO’. In this spotlight, Seinya Bakarr indulged us with the highlights of  how a simple meal for her son turned her into a budding brand, known as ‘PIKIN PAP’.

‘Stereotypically’ put, a mother is a selfless, loving human, who works hard to make sure her infant’s needs are well taken care of. She goes the extra mile or digs deeper than expected, just to make sure these needs are well taken care of.

These selfless acts may include paying close attention to each step and the reactions of her child to either food, water or a particular environment.

No wonder, it is often said that ‘a mother’s love is the purest love you can find on earth’. This love in most cases is not limited to the home where the child lives, but it can be extended to the society that children grow up in. We can therefore see reasons why, women moreso than others have the urge and enthusiasm to make a change, and make the world a better place.Unbiasedly, not wanting to leave our other readers behind, this is part of the  motivation that led us into curating the entreprenurial journey that you are about to read.

The story of Seinya Bakarr as played out in Jalimi farms and foods, an agri-business with a social enterprise which support farmers throughout the farm cycle i.e from planting season to getting customers for their produce. Ride with us as we take you through the journey of how a supposed simple meal for Seinya’s son became a food production business.

“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”
― Plato

Seinya Amie Bakarr is an environmental and social development practioner, a serial entrepreneur, technology enthusiast, gender and children’s advocate. She is also known as ‘Mammie Pap‘.
She is passionate about wanting to make a change in her society, this fueled her zeal for learning and innovation.

After graduation, she worked with BRAC Microfinance, she pursued a career in environment and rural development. While working as a livelihood specialist at Tetra Tech ARD for the USAID funded West African Biodiversity and Climate Change project, she helped to build resilence of coastal communities to climate change.

These experiences in the field and the connections made with the community people led her to form a social enterprise called Jalimi Farms and Food, an agricultural service platform that empowers farmers through innovative technology, tailored and timely knowledge, farm finance and access to market.

This enterprise gave birth to  a new business when she had her son Jedidiah, who was born underweight with very picky eating habits. Most imported feeds given to him either made him constipated or gave him a runny stomach. In her quest to make her son feed well, she sourced for more feeds that would suit him, but once they found one, the shops ran out of it in a few months, and they will have to wait until the shops had another shipment.

Interestingly instead of  entertain frustration, the experience piqued her interest and she began using an age-old traditional recipe that had been passed down to mothers {and several generations}. While using this recipe to make Jedidiah’s meal ‘they saw instant changes in his health’. As a result of this tremendous change, other women from her support group started requesting and using this formula. As the demand increased, it became a thriving business. Later known as ‘Pikin Pap‘

The word Jalimi comes from the Sherbro word which means ‘our own’. The business produces organic baby food, using its own grown produce to help curb the problem of malnutrition in the country and by extention the African content.

Do not judge me by my success. Judge me
by how many times I fell down and got back
up again. – Nelson Mandela

 

Like every other business, starting out was not easy. Seinya’s major challenge was finding the right staff. And for more than 5 times, the business had to slowdown operations before getting their team together.

‘ We started off selling cooked rice porridge (Res Pap), doing deliveries to offices, hospitals,schools e.t.c. But when Covid-19 struck and most institution restricted access, we had to stop business. That aspect of the business lost its momentum ever since then, we are fully focused on baby food production’.

According to the ‘ Baby Food CEO ‘ being a new player in the product line did not come with perks as they had to compete with a well established local brand and tons of exported products out there.

She said: “it took consistency and hard work for us to gain the trust of our customers.”

This has led to the good results they have recorded so far, well based on the continuous positive reviews from their customers.

Like Seinya Bakarr, every loving parent wants to give nothing but  nutritious foods to their young ones, but with the increasing amout of chemicals in foods, more parents turn to the natural option such as Pikin Pap.

As mentioned earlier, the business which started as a result of a mother’s love for her child, continued to thrive as a result of the love other parents have for the growth and well-being of their young ones.

Ariana Diaries asked what one of the trait that had affected businesses in this sector, and her advice for someone who would like to launch a new venture. She said ‘One of the biggest crises in our industry is lack of quality control and this has significant implicatons for our exportability. Most agri-business tend to create a niche and focus on that niche, we hardly challenge ourselves to move outside our comfort zone. We don’t try to improve our products to fit certain market standards’.

She further adviced that ‘ starting out is not going to be easy, but don’t give up and regardless of your market, continously research, experiment, improve on and standardize your products’

Like we always do, we did not forget to ask her to name two African Entrepreneurs that inspire her. She excitedly named: ‘ Sierra Leone’s Christine Sesay and the Nigerian entrepreneur Ibukun Awosika‘; from them she learnt that a little step/starting small in the right direction with some hard work and the right networks, can cook up a storm.

We hope that our dear readers have lot’s to takeaway from this ride with Seinya Bakarr.

For every successful and thriving business you see out there, there was a starting point that was never easy, periods of highs and lows.

You are therefore encouraged to take that idea that has been living in your head for a long time and implement it! Be ready to face whatever challenges that comes your way, and with hard work, consistency and the right networks, we bet that you will record your own success.

Do not forget to share the joy of feeding your young ones with natural and nutritious foods from Jalimi Farms and Foods.

a: Jalimi Farms and Foods | 36 Regent Road, Lumley | 4 SLBS Compound, Goderich
e: jalimifarms@gmail.com | w: www.jalimifoods.com
m: +23274525252 | p: +23278221295

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