Special Feature: Celebrating Auntie Muni’s waakye
In a recent issue of the African Journal of Business & Economic Research, a case study of “Auntie Muni,” an informal woman-owned business in the food sector in Ghana’s Cantonments area was documented.
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The authors (Madichie & Hinson) conducted an in-depth interview with Auntie Muni, and reached the conclusion that the female entrepreneur had braved all odds to remain in business despite the harsh conditions in her area of business.
Female entrepreneur
Auntie Muni hails from the Dagomba tribe in Tamale in the Northern Region of Ghana. She was educated only up to the middle school level. She moved to Accra about two decades ago to help her auntie in the restaurant business before eventually taking over.
Her auntie provided the initial start-up capital, even though the business was still largely operating from home. With time, however, Auntie Muni was persuaded by her customers to move out to the roadside – a decision that has since been rewarded.
At the back of this success, it is not surprising that Auntie Muni plans to expand, but she will need to first secure “a nice location” in order to take this next step. She makes it clear that one of her main challenges remains “finding a good location” – a second being to find a suitable trade name.
Resilience
With a limited educational background, Auntie Muni’s resilience as a mother not just to her kids (but to most young people in the community, hence the name Auntie), coupled with her optimistic outlook on life in general, makes her a worthy case deserving of research and media attention.
Her story also highlights some policy implications for the government to recognise, reward and assist such informal ventures into more formalised entities. The investigation showed that “Auntie Muni” was not just another woman business owner (WBO), but an entrepreneur who has remained in business against all odds. Arguably, Auntie Muni is an illustrative example of an unconventional role model worthy of emulation by women of all demographic configurations (age, education and marital status).
Indeed, it won’t be many years from now until Auntie Muni becomes a hit on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, with her children who are also part of the business being part of the new breed who are comfortable with social media, and all the customer touch points that appeal to the new generation of consumers, as was identified in the case of the more formalised Mama Cass chain in Nigeria and the UK in another paper by Professor Madichie.
Change
However, things need to change, and one of these is government policy and implementation. While the provisions exist in the statutes of the state, the practical applications to the main beneficiaries such as Auntie Muni remain to be seen – this may not be exclusive to Ghana but does need addressing all the same.
In addition to serving as a real-life case study on entrepreneurship, Auntie Muni also has the potential of being an atypical case study in marketing – especially taken from the traditional 4Ps (product, price, place and promotions). As she kept pointing out in the course of our interview, key challenges have remained location and visibility (i.e. place and promotion), as well as the usual suspect – finance/ funding.
First, starting with the product, Auntie Muni’s product, Waakye (brown rice and beans), is a staple for the country. Although the product consists of boiling rice and beans, some variants may include tomatoes, chilli pepper, other spicy ingredients and fish, prawn or meat. As Auntie Muni described her product:
“I tried the white rice for about three months but it did not sell well. The customers complained that they ate white rice in their homes and, therefore, did not patronise that.”
From the above, it is evident that Waakye is a popular Ghanaian food not particularly often eaten at home, as it requires some special preparation. Indeed, Waakye can be eaten anytime of the day – either as breakfast or lunch, and sold by vendors on the streets in big and small cities alike in Ghana.
It has been hailed by the United Nations (African Foods.com, no date), as a combination that can help stamp out malnutrition from the world! Waakye is rich in protein, essential vitamins, magnesium, and other micronutrients for a healthy lifestyle. It is also a low fat meal, too much oil is not included during preparation. Like any other food, if prepared in a clean environment and eaten within minutes or a few hours of preparation, it will remain a healthy choice in terms of bacterial contamination.
Second, conceptualised as a funding issue, price remains a problem facing most small and/or informal businesses of this nature. Auntie Muni is no exception in this regard as she was confronted with numerous unforeseen challenges which include finance and dwindling sales. As she puts it, “My challenges have mainly been money and the fact that sales are down of late. […] It was challenging at the beginning of the business in terms of money. When I started, I did not have enough money, so I spoke with those who supplied me with foodstuffs, such as beans, oil, rice, meat, fish and the likes to sell to me on credit. They agreed to supply me on credit and I had to honour my promise.”
Third, promotions are mostly informal and reliant on referrals – i.e. word-of-mouth, as word does travel fast within her community. Be that as it may, she is very well positioned to benefit from no-cost to low-cost public relations by being profiled by community journalists. This point is picked in her responses to our question on what her achievements have been to date (only media interviews and nothing else):
“I have not received any award from the government or any quarters, it is the name “Auntie Muni” that brings people. It is KSM (Kweku Sintim Missa, the host of “Thank God it’s Friday”, a comedy show on Metro TV) who interviewed me. Citi FM also interviewed me. Those are the recognitions I have had aside the name.
However, her community involvement has ensured that word got around about her business to the extent that some of her customers embark upon long commutes due to “word-of-mouth” communications.
In my community, everybody knows me and I live in peace with everyone in the community. Everybody regards me as Emma (mum) and I respect everyone […] When there is a quarrel in the community, people sometimes come to me and I try my best to settle it.”
Fourth, the issue of place is taken along the lines of the business location and/or business address. Currently, she operates mostly on weekends, but plans to extend her operations to weekdays – something she claims could be achieved only when and if she gets a good location. It is also interesting to note that some government policies do not serve the immediate interests of vulnerable small businesses.
The roadside location seems like a blessing and a curse. In the light of the latter, it goes to suggest a poor market and/or product image. She seized the opportunity and attempted to make the most of it, “If I get a nice location, I will certainly open another branch. The main reason is getting a good location; I have been looking for a place but it is difficult to find. All I need is a good location, I will use my name “Auntie Muni” and people will patronise. When I get a good location…”
Distribution
The distribution element is also key to the place marketing-mix. As she opined, “My relationship with my suppliers was built on trust and, therefore, they could sell to me on credit without fear. There was this man who could give me up 30 bags of rice and 30 bags of beans on credit for me to pay back monthly.”
Resultant effect is that the price of the product needs to be very low considering the street corner positioning. In the case of the former – i.e. being a blessing, it is clear that passers-by would take notice of the customers tucking-in under public glare.
Evidently, Auntie Muni’s waakye trade is very much unstructured in its current form – with no clear or specified target market, as she puts it, “my target is everyone.” Be that as it may, she tends to be more prone to weekend openings alone for reasons that can be perceived akin to a marketing strategy – “I want to attract everybody, hence my decision to operate only on weekends. Everyone is at home on weekends and, therefore, can patronise my food.”
Conclusion
In summing up, Auntie Muni epitomises the strides undertaken by a woman entrepreneur with limited education and resources, but revered by her community. Indeed, Madichie and Nkamnebe once examined those factors that constrained women petty traders’ access to microcredit in Eastern Nigeria, and the innovative measures they have initiated to counter these constraints.
Such lack of access to credit often translated to market exclusion, further deepening the socio-economic and political vulnerability of women. Likewise Otoo et al. in a paper published in the Journal of African Business in 2012, researched Kosai sellers in Niger Republic identifying similar trends.
Collectively, such vulnerability has prompted the need for most informal and/or small businesses to venture into alternative sources of credit. Overall, the study on Auntie Muni has far reaching implications for public policy support geared towards “leveraging” and mainstreaming these initiatives for maximum outreach.
It also highlights the numerous challenges of formalising informal businesses in Africa, despite all the assurances of the government and especially so in the light of WBOs.
Dr Nnamdi O. Madichie is the editor-in-chief of the African Journal of Business and Economic Research, as well as Professor of Marketing and Entrepreneurship at the Graduate Studies Division, School of Business Administration, Canadian University of Dubai. He writes on behalf of the Centre for Sustainability and Enterprise Development (CSED) at UGBS and can be reached at [email protected]; while Robert E. Hinson heads the Centre for Sustainability and Enterprise Development (CSED) at UGBS.