The Incredible Story of Happy Coffee's Impact on Nigeria's Coffee Culture and Value Chain with Princess Adeyinka Tekenah

[00:00:00] You're listening to the Unlocking Africa podcast

[00:00:30] Welcome to the Unlocking Africa podcast where we find amazing people.

[00:00:40] Stay tuned as we bring you inspiring people who are unlocking Africa's economic potential.

[00:00:48] You're listening to the Unlocking Africa podcast with your host Terser Adamu.

[00:00:56] Welcome to the Unlocking Africa podcast where we find amazing people who are doing amazing

[00:01:02] things to unlock Africa's economic potential. Today, we have Princess Adiyinka, who is the founder of

[00:01:09] Happy Coffee, which is an indigenous Nigerian coffee brand that is improving the consumption

[00:01:16] and production of locally sourced coffee in Nigeria. Welcome to the podcast Princess, how are you?

[00:01:23] I'm good. Thank you for inviting me. Total pleasure.

[00:01:27] It's a pleasure to have you on the podcast. I'm looking forward to our conversation. So

[00:01:32] before we get started, can you please introduce yourself and tell us a bit more about Princess

[00:01:37] Adiyinka? Hi, hi everyone. First, I want to thank you for inviting me on this podcast.

[00:01:45] I think it's very important for us as Nigerians and Africans to keep sharing our stories.

[00:01:51] It's very important to the narrative that is being shared around the world.

[00:01:55] Not to take much. My name is Princess Adiyinka Tekenem, the founder and cheer happiness officer

[00:02:01] of Happy Coffee. Yes, Happy Coffee is an indigenous Nigerian coffee brand and coffee

[00:02:06] solution company. Started this company in 2015. Obviously, I have an amazing story behind it,

[00:02:14] but I can tell you that in the past eight and a half years, it's been an amazing journey

[00:02:19] with coffee, from looking for coffee within the Nigerian borders to creating the brand,

[00:02:26] meeting people, creating community through culture and through coffee. It's been an

[00:02:30] amazing experience for me. I'm also a mom to an intelligent seven-year-old. Obviously,

[00:02:36] that adds a lot of color to my life. Yeah, so that's just a bit about me.

[00:02:41] Fantastic. And thank you for that, Princess. So you mentioned that you started in 2015.

[00:02:47] It's been an amazing experience. So what was the inspiration behind Happy Coffee?

[00:02:54] And how has the journey been since its inception? I think for every time I get asked that question,

[00:03:02] if I had a penny, I would have like a whole shipload of dollars or something.

[00:03:10] I like to start my story of my journey from a book I read when I was in college.

[00:03:15] My last friend of mine had given me a book called, Pour Your Heart Into It.

[00:03:20] It's the story of how Howard Schultz started Starbucks. And as a young Nigerian immigrant

[00:03:25] student in America, one of the things that I quickly learned about the American culture was

[00:03:30] coffee. And every time I had a little dollar here and there, I would rush to Starbucks and

[00:03:35] drink a white tall mocha. Those were my first coffee experience in America. So when I read the

[00:03:42] book, it brought to me a lot of insight on how one man changed the popular culture of coffee globally.

[00:03:49] And it struck a chord in my heart and I told myself if I ever had to start a business in my

[00:03:54] future, it would be in coffee and kind of just left it at that. Fast forward to 2015. I'd

[00:04:00] graduate college from America. I took a one-way ticket back to Nigeria after school. I felt

[00:04:07] I needed to come back and put in my own quarter to nation building. And in 2015, I got something on

[00:04:14] the internet about there was a foundation looking for African entrepreneurs who wanted to

[00:04:19] transform the continent when there was going to be like a 5,000-seat capital and a business

[00:04:24] mentorship. I went ahead and applied for it. And voila, I got selected to be one of the

[00:04:30] first 1,000 young Africans to receive seed funding to start in their business. And literally,

[00:04:36] that was how happy coffee was born. Amazing, amazing story. So from that journey that started in 2015

[00:04:45] and prior to that, you experiencing the coffee experience in America and wanting to bring

[00:04:53] something similar back to Nigeria. What have been some of the opportunities and maybe the

[00:05:00] challenges that you faced during that period trying to start a Nigerian coffee startup?

[00:05:06] I think that's a very key question. I think for me, there were three major things that were very

[00:05:11] without quickly unraveled my excitement to get into the coffee value chain as I know it today.

[00:05:17] When I got in one, there was no data. There weren't any companies I could look at within the

[00:05:23] Nigerian coffee sector. As a matter of fact, there was no Nigerian coffee sector at the time.

[00:05:29] So that meant as a young coffee entrepreneur, there was nobody to benchmark. There was no

[00:05:34] data. There were no companies where they're creating coffee experiences or creating coffee.

[00:05:39] I couldn't find anybody. So I literally had to start from the ground up. And that was the

[00:05:44] first thing. The second thing was the fact that there wasn't any value chain. Like I

[00:05:48] rightly said in the first instance, there was no value change. So that meant that there were

[00:05:53] no players to either benchmark as a competitor or to even learn from. So that created a lot of

[00:06:00] barrier for me to get into the business or even being able to start properly. And third was there

[00:06:07] wasn't access to finance, even though I'd gotten the seed capital. But when I looked at the

[00:06:14] general scheme in terms of Nigerian supporting business, whether it's in business financing

[00:06:20] or business knowledge, those information weren't readily available. So that created a lot of work

[00:06:26] for me as a young entrepreneur to whether I wanted to keep going on the journey or I just wanted

[00:06:32] to back out. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that, Princess. So you mentioned in the early days,

[00:06:37] there was no data. Coffee industry was quite nascent in nature, no access to finance. So

[00:06:44] how has that impacted your ability to scale up the business?

[00:06:48] I think for me, it was a very tough situation at that point. So two things happened. When I started

[00:06:55] my journey, I had found that through research that Nigeria had been growing coffee and most of the

[00:07:00] coffee that Nigerians were drinking or had access to was important into the borders. So what that

[00:07:06] meant was there were different opportunities within the value chain that I could access,

[00:07:11] whether I was in processing coffee or creating a coffee brand. But like I rightly said in the

[00:07:15] beginning, there wasn't any data for me to make a lot of assassinations. And that made it difficult for

[00:07:22] my conversation around whether I'm talking to early level investors or even the bank

[00:07:29] or whether or not I was talking to any business person because there wasn't adequate information

[00:07:34] about coffee as a commodity in Nigeria. It made conversations really hard and difficult. So

[00:07:40] it always looked like I was trying to convince them the Nigerians drink coffee.

[00:07:45] And if you know, a lot of investors have experienced brands like Starbucks. So people

[00:07:51] intermittently think that when I say coffee, I mean Starbucks or I mean the cafe culture.

[00:07:57] No, I was generally thinking coffee as in people drinking coffee every day.

[00:08:02] So that created a lot of gap in terms of being able to convince people about what I was

[00:08:07] trying to do. I mean nine years down the line, obviously the conversation is much better because

[00:08:12] the brand has evolved. But in the beginning it was a tough battle trying to get people to see

[00:08:18] what I was talking about as a young entrepreneur and why the value chain for coffee

[00:08:23] needed to be looked upon whether on the side of the government, side of the private sector or

[00:08:28] bringing more entrepreneurs into the value chain. Yeah. With these challenges, you've obviously

[00:08:33] found solutions to overcome them. So I was hoping you can share on some of the

[00:08:39] innovative solutions. Happy Coffee has developed to address the challenges

[00:08:44] specifically within the Nigerian coffee value chain.

[00:08:48] Thank you. I think for me, one of the first things that I quickly realised was we needed to

[00:08:53] develop a brand. And if you know the brand or if you've come in contact with us, you would

[00:08:58] know that we're very particular about who we are, what we stand for and what we're trying to do.

[00:09:05] And that's why our logo is a big bright yellow smiley because when we started, we wanted to

[00:09:12] liberate Nigerians from just regular coffee in your cup. We wanted to create experience,

[00:09:18] we wanted to create hard around coffee. So we're very particular about our brand. So one of

[00:09:23] things that we did quickly was to begin to build brand following. Right now, we have a lot of tribe

[00:09:30] members who follow the brand, who are excited about what the brand is doing. So that's one of

[00:09:35] things that we quickly hacked in our business was to build the brand and build the brand

[00:09:40] following. The other thing that also helped obviously after COVID was the fact that we

[00:09:48] included a level of technology in our outlook. That means that our customers now could engage us

[00:09:54] not from a big brick and mortar kind of store, but we began to look for ways to put in our brand.

[00:10:01] We had to put our brand out there so we were using simple apps like WhatsApp, Twitter.

[00:10:08] We were much more engaging a lot of our customer base online, which a lot of people are in Nigeria.

[00:10:14] Those are some of the things that we did. Also early on, because access to finance was really

[00:10:20] difficult for a young business person like myself, especially in the coffee value chain,

[00:10:25] we began to look for grants opportunities where we could speak about the company in

[00:10:30] terms of pitching. So we did a lot of pitches in the beginning, just putting our story out

[00:10:35] there one story at a time, showing people what we had done and those factors allowed the

[00:10:42] brand to pivot to the point where when you Google Nigerian coffee, happy coffee will show up on your

[00:10:48] Google search. Fantastic. That's amazing work. So if we look specifically at the product, the

[00:10:54] coffee, I've seen that most of your coffee is sourced from Terabes State. What was the reason

[00:11:00] for that? And how do you think it contributes to the uniqueness of your product? So in the

[00:11:08] beginning, when we started business, we had met someone in our value chain who was a coffee

[00:11:14] roaster. So we were sourcing our roasted coffee from this company and she was sourcing from

[00:11:19] Terabes at the point because Terabes was one of the states in Nigeria that was doing a bit of

[00:11:24] work around in building their coffee raw material. So eventually we were able to meet up with other

[00:11:30] processors and farmers in that environment who could supply us the coffee that we needed. So

[00:11:35] that's how come we do a lot of coffee from Terabes. However, we have been talking to other

[00:11:40] communities and hopefully as we build our network, we will be sourcing coffee from other

[00:11:46] communities as well. Interesting. So what has been the challenge in terms of forming

[00:11:51] relationships with farmers and investing in them to support and strengthen Nigeria's

[00:11:57] coffee value chain? I think the first thing is because there hasn't been any government

[00:12:02] intervention over the years. And you know that in a lot of countries, when it comes to

[00:12:07] farming and commodity, there's a role of the government where it supports and intervenes

[00:12:12] in a lot of projects that ensure that whether it's coffee or any commodity or cash group,

[00:12:18] it has to be government intervention. And obviously knowing everything that has happened

[00:12:22] with oil in Nigeria and our agricultural sector, a lot of commodities have come back

[00:12:28] to the forefront. But coffee hasn't really taken that leap when it comes to government

[00:12:32] intervention. So that is what has really deterred a lot of farmers from being able to go back into

[00:12:39] coffee actively. Also, because I said in the beginning we drink imported coffee, that means

[00:12:45] that the big players in the coffee industry in Nigeria still use imported coffee to service

[00:12:50] Nigerian market. That means that there are a lot of taking activity happening within the Nigerian

[00:12:56] coffee value chain. I know what that translates to. There's a lot of farmer apathy, the farmers are

[00:13:02] not really excited in going back to the farm. Everybody is going to have to do what they

[00:13:06] need to do to survive. So that's why coffee hasn't really taken off as issued in the value chain.

[00:13:13] However, we've been like a strong advocate in declaring the role of coffee globally and seeing

[00:13:19] why Nigeria should also get back actively in the coffee value chain, ensuring that farmers

[00:13:25] look upon properly. So I'm assuming a lot of work is done in terms of educating and training the

[00:13:32] farmers in modern agriculture techniques and technology. Can you tell us some of the work

[00:13:38] that you're doing this area to add value to the product that you produce?

[00:13:44] So one of the things that we had to do was to look at what was available in the market.

[00:13:50] And if you know, we are in the first wave in the coffee industry. Yes, we're in the first way. We

[00:13:56] drink actively instant coffee imported from China and the rest of it. So for us, the first thing

[00:14:02] was how do we create competitive products that would ensure that Nigerians have access to

[00:14:07] freshly brewed coffee? And literally that's how we started. We wanted Nigerians to drink coffee

[00:14:13] the right way. We wanted them to have access to local coffee obviously because

[00:14:16] we also have coffee in our backyard. Why can't people drink freshly roasted coffee?

[00:14:21] So and our product line has literally evolved into hearing what the market wants as well

[00:14:26] and being able to currently we have 15 market feed products where customers can have access

[00:14:31] to different ranges of products. Also because when you look at Nigeria as well, because we're

[00:14:37] teaching people to drink coffee the right way, that means we're not high tech coffee

[00:14:41] people in terms of equipment or the pods. I mean, there are companies that sell coffee pods and capsules

[00:14:49] in Nigeria but on the larger scale, people that just literally want to pour their coffee in a cup.

[00:14:55] So a lot of education is going into how we design the products that we put into the market.

[00:15:00] So maybe we can speak on that a bit more in terms of how do you ensure that the

[00:15:04] coffee that you're sourcing is of a high quality and also meet the company's standards

[00:15:10] for processing? So two things that we have been able to do is like I said, there isn't a lot of

[00:15:17] education in Nigeria when it comes to coffee. However, we have partnered with another roaster

[00:15:24] in Ghana who helps us with a lot of in detail information about coffee. And like I said, for

[00:15:30] the first six years of our company, we were sourcing roasted coffee from another roaster

[00:15:35] who is also government approved. However, about two years ago, we finally transited into owning our own

[00:15:42] coffee roasting facility and we had the government come do an inspection and now we have our license

[00:15:49] to be able to produce roasted coffee to the community and to our customers.

[00:15:55] Fantastic. So you've discussed in terms of how happy coffee contributes to improving the

[00:16:01] production of locally sourced Nigerian coffee. So alternatively, maybe we can speak about how

[00:16:07] you feel that you contribute to improving not the production but the consumption

[00:16:14] of locally sourced Nigerian coffee. What activities have you been engaging in to achieve that?

[00:16:20] Two things. Well, not two things. Generally, in 2019, one of the things that we did was we

[00:16:27] pioneered the first ever coffee festival in Lagos called the Lagos Coffee Festival. That was a way

[00:16:33] of bringing to the BF front conversations around building coffee, building the coffee industry,

[00:16:39] building community and culture. Because one of the things that I know that we need to do is to

[00:16:45] actively conversate or dialogue around coffee by bringing everybody in the valley chain stick

[00:16:52] holders together. So that was one of the things that we did in 2015. Our goal is to have another

[00:16:58] festival this year that will be bringing the larger, larger, larger stakeholders,

[00:17:04] not just in Nigeria, but across the continent to converge in Nigeria. So we can continue

[00:17:10] on how we can support ourselves in building a stronger value chain and adding value to

[00:17:15] African coffee as a whole. One of the things that we also do is we're engaging a lot of

[00:17:20] community projects in terms of seeing how we can help, whether we're teaching people to

[00:17:26] build in their own mini coffee areas or teaching women in starting micro businesses.

[00:17:31] We're engaging a lot of discussions around how coffee can add value and tackle social problems

[00:17:37] like unemployment. Also on the African level as I see your happy coffee, I get myself involved

[00:17:43] in the women community as well, where women can come together and share a lot of ideas on

[00:17:48] how we can add value to African coffee, empower women in the farms and also women who are building

[00:17:54] our coffee businesses as well. So we do a lot of work in advocating. Like I said, we promote coffee

[00:18:00] heavily, Nigerian coffee heavily where we go. So those are some of the work we're also doing

[00:18:05] in ensuring that we can build out. Going back to the festival, do you think that the event

[00:18:12] has increased the participation of the coffee value chain stakeholders in Nigeria?

[00:18:18] Yes. I think what that event did was with an eye opener. I think that people always thought of coffee.

[00:18:26] If you haven't done a lot of traveling, you will think that coffee in Nigeria is just

[00:18:30] something we put in a cup or drink and that is it. A lot of people, the festival gave people

[00:18:36] first hand insight to how coffee can be included in everyday conversation. It's a very fair

[00:18:45] commodity in terms of creating resource and development. So with an eye opener for people,

[00:18:50] and I know that this second phase of the festival or second festival, it's going to be

[00:18:56] much more successful because people are much more open in terms of seeing what more can be done

[00:19:03] with coffee. Fantastic. I guess the initial festival in 2019 was a key milestone. So what are

[00:19:12] the milestones would you say have been key to the progress and the development of happy coffee?

[00:19:19] For us, I think another milestone happened in 2022 when we began to roast our own coffee.

[00:19:28] I don't know if you have very deep knowledge about the value chain. The roasting aspect of

[00:19:34] that value chain is very critical for any business at all because you are able to control prices.

[00:19:41] You're also able to regulate the kind of coffee and blends that you have.

[00:19:45] As a young entrepreneur who started her first coffee shop with the French press

[00:19:49] and then having to own in a coffee roasting facility, it was a very significant milestone

[00:19:55] for us as a company because like I said, it allowed us to regulate the coffee, allowed us

[00:19:59] also regulate our pricing because we believe in fair pricing in terms of what our consumers have

[00:20:07] access to. We always want to give you the best price for either your cup of coffee or your pack

[00:20:13] of coffee. So that allowed us to continue in that space. Fantastic. And I believe you have

[00:20:19] three coffee experience centres in Nigeria at the moment. Currently we lost one during COVID so

[00:20:26] we have two now. Okay, okay. Are there any immediate plans to expand further in the near future?

[00:20:34] Absolutely. For us when you look at Africa as a whole, one of the things that we are strongly

[00:20:41] inclined towards is creating African coffee experiences and what do I mean by that? When

[00:20:46] you look at Africa and when you bring coffee onto the table, what you would hear is, oh,

[00:20:52] there's coffee in Kenya, there's coffee in Uganda, there's coffee in Ethiopia. You would never hear

[00:20:59] about coffee brands who are creating experiences like the Costa coffees, the Dunkin Donuts and the

[00:21:05] rest of it. And I think it's very important for Africans to play in that space. If it's our

[00:21:10] coffee, we should play heavily in the coffee experience sector. So for us at Happy Coffee,

[00:21:16] you're going to be seeing us expand our coffee experience across the border. We have plans of

[00:21:21] creating pop-up experiences in the UK as well, across Nigeria. We want to see more coffee outlets

[00:21:27] where people are able to experience a great cup of coffee. So those are things,

[00:21:32] some part of our expansion plans is creating more coffee experiences using coffee from Nigeria

[00:21:37] and from across Africa. So you mentioned something key there which is creating African

[00:21:43] coffee experiences. So does the African coffee experience differ from the coffee experience

[00:21:48] in say Europe or America? Absolutely. I think one of the things that you should know about Africans

[00:21:56] is we're very happy, we're very loud, we're very cheerful. When you think of a cafe,

[00:22:01] the first thing that comes to your mind is, oh, when you go into a cafe, you have to

[00:22:05] you know act nicely, sit as a place to just come and do your work. For me,

[00:22:10] when we're creating our own experience, we also want to see the areas of the basic

[00:22:16] pastries that we eat. We want to see more African pastries. So for example, if we open

[00:22:22] the coverage job in the UK, you will not find a croissant there, but you will find what we call

[00:22:28] a meat pie or a Scott egg or you know a pastry from Ethiopia or an injera. We want to see

[00:22:35] African food and flavors just bossed through coffee. We're really seeing that in our cops.

[00:22:40] We want to see creating more experiences with African music, even to what the baristas were.

[00:22:46] We want to see African prints just busting through the door and the conversations and all of that.

[00:22:52] So that's where the experience is going to come. You touched on this early on.

[00:22:57] There is this opinion that Nigerians or Africans in general don't consume coffee or there

[00:23:03] isn't a coffee culture on the continent. What are your thoughts on this?

[00:23:07] I think first we need to clarify the difference between a coffee culture and a cafe culture.

[00:23:12] Yes, there is a very strong coffee culture in Africa. Africa is drink coffee,

[00:23:17] Nigerians drink coffee from Euro monitor reports over 40 million Nigerians during

[00:23:22] assemblance of coffee daily. So whether we're drinking a cup of instant coffee or

[00:23:29] fresh Hebrew coffee or pods, we're drinking the coffee. But what is not very prevalent in Africa

[00:23:35] is the cafe culture as the world knows it in the West. So people interchange that and say,

[00:23:41] oh Africans don't drink coffee because we don't sit out and conversate around coffee.

[00:23:45] And it's because we already have a pre-existing culture and when we come together or congregate

[00:23:51] together. So for us in happy coffee, one of the things that we do is we infuse coffee into

[00:23:56] those experiences. So for example in Nigeria, Nigerians love to go to parties. So we have our

[00:24:02] mobile cafes going to events like weddings where people can have access to a cappuccino

[00:24:08] or a Nigerian style coffee with our own spices and the rest of it. So the notion that Nigerians

[00:24:14] or Africans don't drink coffee isn't true. What you don't see is the cafe culture and that's

[00:24:21] why I said Africans have to develop our own way of coffee drinking or coffee experience the way we

[00:24:27] want to experience coffee as a community or as a company. Thank you for that. You touched on this

[00:24:32] in terms of the importance of the mobile cafe service that you offer for both indoor and outdoor

[00:24:40] events? For us when we started the mobile cafe it was because we needed to educate people

[00:24:47] and bring the coffee to where they are. And it's because of the Nigerian culture. Nigerians are

[00:24:52] more comfortable in accepting a new concept when it's brought to them other than having them come

[00:24:58] to you. So the idea was to take it to where they were and begin to have conversations or conversation

[00:25:05] starters like oh did you know your coffee comes from Nigeria? That always starts a conversation.

[00:25:10] So that was why we developed that model. So the model is for a time where we're able to bring

[00:25:16] coffee knowledge to the tables or to the presence of people who are existing coffee drinkers or

[00:25:23] people who are looking to convert. So when we look at say your customer group do they tend to be

[00:25:29] of a certain generation or demographic or is it quite broad across ages and incomes?

[00:25:38] Yes yes and because we also have a lineup that is extensive so we have the hot, we have the cold,

[00:25:45] we have it with the ice cream like the espresso coffee milkshake. So we have an extensive menu

[00:25:52] so that allows us to accommodate more people within a certain age group right from university level

[00:25:59] from the Gen Z to the Gen X and the boomers. So we have customers all the way to their 60s

[00:26:04] who either want to drink plain coffee or coffee infused with milk or coffee infused with Irish

[00:26:10] cream. So we have an extensive target market. Brilliant brilliant brilliant you've discussed or

[00:26:17] described the early days of happy coffee on the Nigerian coffee value chain up to the current.

[00:26:23] So if you look to the current and current trends are there any current trends that you're seeing

[00:26:29] in the African or Nigerian coffee industry that you're excited about? Yes as a matter of fact

[00:26:37] I had just arrived from Ethiopia about three days ago where we had the first African coffee week and

[00:26:43] 20th fine coffee conference and exhibition and I was super excited about the level of innovation

[00:26:51] that is coming through the value chain. I think for a couple of years now there has been a high

[00:26:56] level of clamor for Africans to add value to their coffee. You know that over the decades

[00:27:03] we would ship out our green coffee to the rest of the world and we will be left with the bottom

[00:27:08] of the barrel. So for since the past five years at least that I know there has been a lot of

[00:27:14] clamor in you know people or African communities or African businesses to add value to their coffee.

[00:27:20] We also had another barista competition that was won by a gentleman from Kenya so the continent

[00:27:26] is seeing more careers being propagated on the continent and keeping more coffee baristas

[00:27:34] in on the continent as well. So we're seeing trends of more young people going to become baristas.

[00:27:41] We're seeing more women coming into the valley team becoming roasters like ourselves.

[00:27:45] We're seeing more brands being developed and we're hoping that in a few months from now

[00:27:51] the African Union would also adopt coffee as a strategic commodity and that will allow

[00:27:57] governmental countries to begin to look towards investing in the coffee value chain of the country.

[00:28:02] So that got me really excited you know seeing a lot of young people out there really excited

[00:28:07] about starting their own coffee business it's on the rise and that's quite exciting to see.

[00:28:12] Thank you and I'm glad you've mentioned in terms of the role of government.

[00:28:16] So from your perspective what more can be done from a governmental perspective to encourage the

[00:28:23] growing Nigerian or African coffee industry? I'd like to borrow a word from the current

[00:28:30] president of the African Development Bank that says that you know Africa needs to treat agriculture

[00:28:35] as business not as a hobby. That's the first thing we need to treat coffee or whatever

[00:28:41] commodity we're looking at as business and when it's business things happen in times if you want

[00:28:47] things to gain a lot of momentum it has to be considered effort it has to be intentional.

[00:28:52] We need to see the government intentionally create policies that will boost local consumption

[00:28:58] and production. I'm also of the opinion that Africans should drink their own coffee as well

[00:29:03] we should add value to our coffee we should get more Africans drinking our own coffee

[00:29:08] instead of waiting for raw material to go to China and then being brought back to Nigeria or to Lume.

[00:29:14] We want to see more Africans drink coffee and that will only happen if the government

[00:29:18] sits down and creates policies whether it's on the African level using Aftac as an example.

[00:29:25] Let me give you an example a friend of mine wanted to ship coffee from Nigeria to Ghana the other

[00:29:31] day the cost of shipping was close to six thousand dollars it was just ridiculous let me say to Naira

[00:29:38] the bill I got which is shipping the coffee a hundred cage of coffee to Ghana and custom duty

[00:29:44] was going to cost us almost three million Naira to ship a hundred cage of coffee from Lagos to

[00:29:50] Ghana it made no sense so those are the kind of things the government needs to do we need to

[00:29:56] reduce or take out tariffs when two African countries are trading amongst each other we need

[00:30:03] to see government create policies that improve local consumption and production we need to see more

[00:30:09] incentives given to private sector investors and players who decide to play in the value

[00:30:14] chain giving them incentive whether it's a tax break or giving them tax or holiday we need to

[00:30:20] just see more investment coming into that value chain it will do a lot when it comes to

[00:30:24] government I agree I agree princess hopefully it's something that we will see in the near future

[00:30:32] so if we look past that and look into the future where do you see Africa in five years time in terms

[00:30:38] of the growth of the coffee market I'm going to see I presume with women like me in the value

[00:30:45] chain we are going to see a deliberate effort in we're going to see more coffee entrepreneurs

[00:30:51] get into the value chain and when entrepreneurs come on board which we're going to see is more

[00:30:55] innovation more creativity we're going to see more business around coffee it will not be business as

[00:31:01] usual for example as a coffee entrepreneur in Nigeria 98% of what I get in raw material we

[00:31:07] use for local consumption so in the next five years we're going to see those numbers grow

[00:31:13] we're going to see more people come into the value chain whether it's as a roaster or as a

[00:31:18] barista we're going to see that grow on the continent we're also going to see the emergence of

[00:31:25] what I call the future of coffee and that's getting more young people to get into that value chain

[00:31:33] let me give you an example I met a lady from Kenya who said a lot of Kenyan farmers don't want

[00:31:38] their children to go into the farms and the reason is because you know being a coffee

[00:31:43] farmer hasn't really made a lot for them so they discourage their children from going into the

[00:31:48] coffee farm but if you look at the flip side whenever I'm going to the factory my son's face

[00:31:53] lights up he wants to come and help me because he sees his mom like oh she's doing coffee she's

[00:31:58] really super cool so we want to see that narrative change and we want to be able to be

[00:32:05] the in the forefront of changing the narrative around coffee in Africa where every time you

[00:32:10] think african you think of you're not just thinking of a woman in the farm picking coffee

[00:32:14] you want to see the narrative changing seeing women like myself and the forefront building

[00:32:18] strong brands competing with other strong brands across the continent in Asia we want to see more

[00:32:24] coffee shops are long you know so those are things I see that's going to happen in the next

[00:32:29] five years there's going to be a lot of value at the show of african coffee so that means

[00:32:33] that we're going to be importing more coffee amongst ourselves than exporting it out to the

[00:32:38] rest of the world fantastic thank you for that princess so if we look closer to home where do

[00:32:43] you see yourself in happy coffee in five years time oh what role or impact do you hope to have

[00:32:50] on african's coffee industry that's a very very simple question for very wide I want to see in

[00:32:59] five years I want to see happy coffee more in terms of the happy coffee logo just popping up

[00:33:05] in different continents different cities across the world we want to see more young people taking

[00:33:10] the brand as a as a big comb of hope and light we want to be able to expand into other african

[00:33:17] countries we want to see happy coffee in more countries and we want to see high more states

[00:33:22] in Nigeria we also want to be the leading solution company as well where we are able to help

[00:33:27] create more diverse solutions for the african market and the african consumer so those

[00:33:32] things that I want to see and hopefully in five years we will be heading towards being the first

[00:33:37] listed coffee company in Nigeria on the stock exchange amazing amazing fantastic great vision

[00:33:44] great ambition and a lot of insight that I hope and look forward to seeing become a reality thank

[00:33:52] you quote of the week as people we often have quote mantras african proverbs or affirmations

[00:34:00] keep us going when times are challenging or when times are good do you have one that you can share

[00:34:06] with us today um let me say I have to rock my head um I always truly just tell people um you just

[00:34:14] literally need to keep going when I think of my story you know having been a young immigrant

[00:34:19] student taking me it took me 12 years to get my first degree moving to Nigeria starting the

[00:34:25] brand I tell people you just need to find how you need to keep going with your dream with your vision

[00:34:32] and you will definitely make headway but you just need to keep going somehow wise words I guess

[00:34:39] as an entrepreneur that is one of the key elements resilience keep going no matter what happens

[00:34:46] it's not how fast you go it's just getting to the destination absolutely absolutely fantastic

[00:34:54] as we've come to the end of today's conversation do you have any closing remarks final course of

[00:34:59] action for people who are interested in happy coffee or interested in the general coffee industry in

[00:35:04] Nigeria or Africa absolutely um like I said we're always here you can follow us on instagram

[00:35:10] and happy coffee Nigeria or at our website happycoffeeafrica.com we are open to conversations

[00:35:18] around coffee at all the time just send us an email and happy coffee Nigeria at gmail.com and we

[00:35:24] would answer any questions we would we're always interested in conversations around building the

[00:35:30] value chain so you can follow us on any of our social media handles and we would you know email

[00:35:36] you back or chat back with you and open the doors that need to be opened fantastic fantastic

[00:35:43] thank you for that princess Adiyinka absolute pleasure having you on the podcast it's clear

[00:35:48] that happy coffee is at the forefront of changing the Nigerian coffee industry using innovative

[00:35:55] solutions and obviously your dedication to quality and sourcing quality products so keep

[00:36:01] up the amazing work and I look forward to seeing how things progress in the near future thank you

[00:36:08] so much thank you Tessa thank you for this opportunity it's been a pleasure having you

[00:36:12] on the podcast and we will speak soon all right thank you and you have a lovely day bye bye now

[00:36:19] thank you to everyone who has listened and stayed tuned to the podcast if you've enjoyed this

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[00:36:36] Unlocking Africa podcast