Mushrooms give Mukunzi a fortune

Speaking to her, an image of a resilient woman is conjured in my mind; one who will not give up or take any nonsense. Getting straight to the point we talk about the need to share her entrepreneurship journey. Indeed, Alana Mukunzi’s spine is strengthened to come through any situation strong, having nursed her mother through a long illness. However, at one point savings were depleted.

“The beautiful thing is that she was turning the bend, thus my mind could focus on looking for ways to earn an income for sustenance. Several ideas came up but none quite caught my attention until the day I was in a taxi and saw a truck with a picture of mushrooms. That was when I decided that we could grow mushrooms as a business,” she shares about her inspiration.

Starting out

On September 1, 2018, Inz’imwe Company Ltd was born and while it would help the family come out of a period of financial lack, it was also geared towards helping women and youths look at agriculture as a profitable business venture.

“We desired to change the perception people had towards farming. We decided to focus on commercial farming and value addition in turn offering products that would have a longer shelf life.”

Starting with Shs4.4m which was from her mother’s savings, Mukunzi used it to buy already made mushroom 1,000 gardens at Shs3,000 each, construct a temporary shelter for the gardens at  Shs1m, transportation and offloading expenses that cost Shs130,000, buying a watering pipe and a weighing scale. 

“It was during a conversation with a friend, she gave me the number of Mr Kisitu Abel who helped me with the set up, gardens, transportation, pipe, weighing scale and the contact of the vendor at Nakasero Market who would buy the mushrooms,” she speaks about her starting. 

Within a few weeks it was harvest time and desiring to better understand what she was selling to others bought some mushrooms and learned mushrooms are really tasty. 

“I took the rest to the vendor at Nakasero market and sold each kilo at Shs5000 to the vendor.” Getting to the market at 6am, the experience was eye opening as everyone was in a hurry to sell and leave since most are farmers selling to vendors who in turn sell to retailers. 

“I internalised the adage, ‘the early bird catches the worm’ because if you arrive earlier, you will find many waiting and the reverse if you reach later. Additionally, I leaned that a large investment brings in more profit thus prompting me to work harder,” she shares. 

At that time, Mukunzi was earning an average of Shs40,000 per day for six days after deducting all her expenses of Shs10,000.

Learning from her experiences, the company clientele grew to encompass restaurants such as La Fontanie restaurant, Drew’s and Jack’s restaurant, Pizza connection, and Mokka Terrace among others. Getting these clients required Mukunzi to walk into some places and talk to the manager, give some samples and leave her contact with them. 

“On other occasions, when eating out with friends or family, I would ask the manager of the place if they had a supplier for mushrooms, if they didn’t, I would request to supply them. However, other clients were got through referrals.”

On a weekly basis, she would supply one or two kilos to each restaurant and that was within her ability to produce. Nonetheless, she once got an order to deliver 20kgs and with that had to buy crates, bigger polythene bags which cost her Shs50,000.  

“Expansion is a process that requires adequate preparation therefore lack of systems to sustain the large order made it difficult for me to continue supplying this client,” she intimates.

Located at Mpererwe, Kiyanja Zone along Gayaza Road, Inz’imwe Company Limited’s products include oyster mushrooms; fresh, sun-dried and dehydrated.

Mukunzi’s dream is that they will become a food basket in Uganda; feeding Uganda and Africa, one family at a time. “We will do this through keeping our word to offer an excellent product in order to satisfy our customers is our mission,” she shares.

Challenges

Mukunzi had a passion but not done ample or proper research and had not gone through any training. 

“I didn’t know how to deal with pests sufficiently thus had to learn on the job. That led to some serious losses which almost caused me to close shop.” She was however blessed to receive was free training being a member of two farmers groups that deal with mushroom production; one in Kawempe division whose training was held at home by Mr Kisitu Abel in partnership with KCCA and the other in Nakawa division by Mrs Byaruhanga in partnership with the Private Sector Foundation Uganda and World Bank . “In these trainings, I learnt about spawn production, how to make gardens, mushroom harvesting, packaging and marketing and value addition of oyster mushrooms,” she speaks of the benefits.

Future

Currently, Mukunzi is working on adding value to mushrooms by making oils and gels. “For the oil, I was trained when we had training of trainers and I intend to do some more this month. In regards to gels, I got help from a contact at URI. These products are yet to be rolled out to the market because I need to get a Q-Mark from UBOS,” she shares.

They are also training women and youth to start their own mushroom farms. “So far one woman’s farm has been set up and they are working together to find bigger market to accommodate the production.