Akwenyu’s passion is her secret ingredient

Mariam Akwenyu tastes her product. She supplies the yoghurt in major supermarkets in and around Kampala. PHOTOS/EDGAR R. BATTE 

What you need to know:

Miriam Akwenyu has built her business on trust. Her business model consists of knowing her customer, valuing them and selling at an appropriate cost then advertising from door to door, social media and simple word of mouth to make sure the yoghurt reaches everybody.

By 6:30am, she is up and ready to start production. There are three employees to assist Miriam Akwenyu in the process of making yoghurt at her cottage establishment in Namugongo. 
She is a budding entrepreneur anchoring her efforts on Bliss Yogurt as her business brand. 

Big dream 
A mother and travel enthusiast, her maiden venture was and is still in education, thanks to the induction made by both her parents who set up a school in which she is an administrator. 

She then thought of how she could contribute to the community while earning a livelihood. 
Akwenyu started different projects to provide laundry and confectionery services. 
When she started dairy production, she realised that it was what brought her entrepreneurial spirits alive. 

Inspiration 
She not only invested start-up capital but her soul and energies to make it work. 
Her family and friends were the first to taste her product and their feedback was encouraging. 

“I was inspired to do a dairy business because of my love for milk. I could ‘blame’ it on my mother who always provides milk at home but also with the availability of milk in many places also contributed. I think it was catalysed by the covid-19 pandemic which allowed me take a break from school and have more time to think,” she adds.
She went on to register the idea and undergo the necessary processes as required by Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS), the country’s standards and quality body. She paid Shs1m for calibration. 


Akwenyu having a chat with her worker 

Capital 
Each of the flavours of the yoghurt was tested at a fee of Shs325,000 each. 
Her cottage establishment makes vanilla, blueberry, coconut, strawberry, chocolate and plain unsweetened chocolate yogurt so with all these tested, the total amount she paid was Shs1.95m.

“The consumers of our yoghurt products have varied tastes and their favourite drives our production line. We have had enormous feedback and this drives our production.”Bliss Yoghurt underwent auditing. She paid Shs600, 000 for that. For a permit and surveillance, Akwenyu parted with Shs950, 000. 
She needed to be certified by the Dairy Development Authority (DDA), and that cost her Shs150, 000. She also needed the yoghurt nutritional values verified by Uganda Industrial Research Institute (UIRI). For that, she paid the institute Shs240, 000.

Production 
“We produce 60 litres of packaged yoghurt every day. This is big considering the fact that this is a family hustle. And done in our backyard. Cumulatively, this comes to 300 litres every five days of the week,” Akwenyu explains.
She adds: “Our production line is simple, we get the milk delivered at home, poured into the jars, for measurements and quality checks. We don’t take chances.”  The milk is transferred to the boilers for pasteurisation. The hydro electric power is both unreliable and expensive so she opted to use gas as a more reliable alternative.

During the production process, the milk is mixed with the dry ingredients, cooled, mixed with yoghurt cultures and set for inoculation thereafter flavouring, packaging and cooling. It is refrigerated.  “The next day is full of activity. We start with calls to confirm orders and then draw the day’s map to be followed by our delivery car. Some orders are so swift for which we have had the safe boda as our partners and they efficiently deliver,” the businesswoman explains.


Yoghurt must be packaged in a clean container.

Market  
The bulk of her clients are family, friends and business outlets such as shops and supermarkets. 
She also makes home deliveries as part of their plan to ensure the yoghurt is at as many breakfast tables as possible. The setback so far has been the drawback due to cancellation of school orders which closed off after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. 
“But we are hopeful. We may revisit that line but as for now we are reaching out to families in Kampala and metropolitan Kampala,” Akwenyu discloses. 

Being a start-up, she says that she is mindful of costs and being consistent in her production line. She is using available but cost effective communication and marketing platforms like social media. 
“We have not evaluated the effectiveness of this (social media marketing) but we seem overwhelmed sometimes by the feedback. We complement this with the phone calls. This tells much about the word of mouth that is made by you our friends,” she observes.

Future 
The director of Bliss Yoghurt hopes to get bigger and better. As part of the cottage establishment’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), it plans to help those in need amongst the community, for example orphans or abandoned babies in homes. “We don’t intend to capitalise on this but it’s a proven way of building trust and loyalty within the community.  And these actions speak louder. Why not do the actions of blessings with Bliss to make noise for us?”

Hiccups 
The journey has not been without days that test her zeal. “Did I tell you about not taking chances? One time during the lockdown we got our supply of milk mixed in one boiler and the whole lot got spoilt. This was a loss.”
She further narrates, “We have had challenges with measurement from the old mother’s rations to the scientific and large scale. The troubles with registration and being accepted into the supermarket were all nightmares. ”

A dairyist pours the final product in the cup for measurement

Her business model consists of knowing her customer, valuing them and selling at an appropriate cost then advertising from door to door, social media and simple word of mouth to make sure the yoghurt reaches everybody.
To manage her finances and revenue streams, Akwenyu makes monthly budgets, ensuring that she minimises unnecessary expenses and prioritises growth. She has a good billing strategy of using invoices and receipts. 

Her dream is to save in anticipation of establishing a yoghurt plant in future. For now, it’s on her wish-list. “I encourage all business people to love what they do and so do what they love. Never give up,” she advises.