How value-addition turns around Musoke’s fortunes

It is possible to make some money, through value-addition, right in your home, to meet your personal needs and to even provide employment to other people.
This is what Samuel Musoke, 52, who holds a Bachelors of Science in Accounting and a Masters in Business Administration, has found to be so true. He once worked as an accountant with World Vision an international NGO; he was a lecturer of Entrepreneurship and Accounting at Muteesa I Royal University, and he also served as a finance director with Giant Communication in Lusaka, Zambia, before retiring and setting up his own business right in his personal residence in Masaka Town.

How he started
“In 2012, I returned to Uganda having made a decision to settle down in our home and to try self-employment because this is what I had spent plenty of time telling my students about at the university,” he told Seeds of Gold during the interview last week.
“I often stressed the importance of creating their jobs through entrepreneurship and I felt it was time I did that too.”

His wife, Sarah, a nurse, was quite supportive and she actively participated in establishing the value-addition enterprise that is now the family’s major source of income.
“We realised that there was a big demand for quality millet flour used for making porridge in the neighborhood and we began with filling that need,” Musoke narrated.

“We purchased the millet from farmers, removed all impurities from it, ground it into flour, and packaged it. Whoever tasted the porridge made out of our millet flour praised its good quality and soon we were overwhelmed by the demand for it. One very important rule is to practice maximum hygiene and to package the product attractively,” he says.

Musoke began to associate with other people engaged in small scale enterprises in the town and he was soon elected chairman of Uganda Small Scale Industries Association (USSIA) in Masaka District, a position that put him into closer contact with many other self-employed people doing various crafts.

Okra beverage
Later the couple began buying okra and turning it into a beverage.
They also grew some okra themselves on their own farm at Kirimya but due to increased demand for their okra beverage, they now have engaged out-grower farmers across the country to provide them with extra okra fruit.

Household
Today, NARHEMA Products are a household name in almost the entire Masaka Town and its products include okra Superior Beverage, roasted groundnuts with simsim, natural honey, millet flour, groundnut paste, maize flour, wedding cakes, soya flour, and liquid soap, among others.
Some consumers pick the items directly from Musoke’s home but most NARHEMA Products can be obtained from several retail shops and supermarkets in Masaka Town.

Raw material
“We have out-growers across Uganda,” explained Musoke.
“You might ask why we have them in different parts of Uganda. It has to be so because when millet flour is scarce in western Uganda during some months of the year it is normally available in eastern Uganda. So we have got suppliers across the country. And we take interest in the way the crops we use are cultivated. We take interest in their postharvest handling to ensure they don’t develop undesirable characteristics which can spoil the taste of our product. This means making long upcountry trips. One of our best okra farmers is in Gulu.”

Microfinance Support Centre
Musoke also believes in sustaining a good working relationship with a financial institution to succeed in business.
He enjoys a good relationship with Microfinance Support Center from which he obtains credit whenever he needs it.
He keeps a group photograph of the people who gathered at his home on February 22, 2018, for some training in financial literacy.

“Microfinance Support Centre has made our work a lot easier,” he said. “I am now in a position to take loans and buy stock in bulk so that I can keep producing even during times of commodity shortages. He has also been able to purchase a new grinding machine and now NARHEMA turns out far more products and a lot more quickly than ever before.
Musoke said he is fully satisfied with self-employment.
One of his main achievements since he set up the business is that three of his children have completed university education and the last born is in his final year at St Henry’s College Kitovu.

Other products
They went into honey purifying, maize flour production making other products. Today they are a registered company, Noah’s Ark Worldwide Ltd, whose trademark is NARHEMA Products.
Value-addition may be described as the process of turning food products or other commodities into better and more useful items.
Selling agricultural products in raw form is not as paying as selling them in processed form.
For example, groundnuts can be ground and turned into powder or a paste which may be sold at a higher price and earn bigger profit than what raw groundnuts would fetch.