Biography
I was born in 1968 in Hohoe, a town in the Volta Region of Ghana, West Africa. My parents were very loving , my mother was a tutor in a Teachers Training college and my father was a banker. I had a good and happy life, steeped in family values and African traditions.
Food plays a big part in my Ghanaian culture which dictates that you must share your food with everyone who visits you or is there when you are eating. It’s considered rude if you don’t. Perhaps this is why Ghanaians are described as very hospitable, sharing home-cooked food at every social gathering, no matter what.
My Mum was a great cook. Though I was an only child she raised me with her nieces and nephews; a very common situation in our culture. We did not eat out; Mama prepared every meal from scratch and always insisted that we did that too when we took turns to cook as teenagers. I remember how on some occasion, before we left for boarding school, say, we would have very special home-made foods, flavours that would stay with us until we came back. Anyone who knows African cuisine would notice the big role that textures and flavours play in our foods. Gari is grated cassava or cassava meal; kokonte is also cassava meal and yet the textures and flavours are very different according to how they are processed and even served. It is these very differences that make an authentic meal. Genuine gari for instance is crisp, dry and has a fresh taste and the size of the granules doesn't usually matter as much as the texture and taste.
Living and working in the UK I found that the fresh and good quality ingredients that I was used to cooking with were not easily available. It was no wonder that, when I considered starting my own company, this steered me towards the food business.
I started Pyma in 2016 and had to learn quickly to avoid the pitfalls and risks associated with international business in general and the food sector in particular. I imported pantry items from Ghana for cooking traditional West African dishes, including gari, plantain flour, yam flour, palm nut cream, cassava flour, fufu powder, palm oil, shea butter, shea oil and coconut oil.
Initially I worked with large wholesalers who re-packaged and re-branded my products. Now I’ve diversified and launched my own retail brand called ENA. Ena, which in my local dialect means Mother and also ‘provides’, sums up perfectly the Ghanaian tradition of hospitality and generosity and my own desire to nurture and provide for others. Over the last few years the business has grown and my aims are to make it a success and stay true to my values.
