Florence Mogere is the Managing Director of Frozen Isle, manufacturing variety of African indigenous vegetables.
Mogere was employed for over 12 years before she finally took the bold move and quit to set up her own company.
The entrepreneur said the business was inspired by her life struggles and the need to create employment for her two nannies.
Here is her story as told by WoK.
Entrepreneurship
In an interview with Utmost Precision, Mogere noted that she was working in the financial industry as an auditor before venturing into agribusiness.
She came with the idea in 2019 while she was still under employment.
“I was thinking of what to do because for most people, ‘after leaving employment what next’. I thought about it but my main interest was in food production,” Mogere mentioned.
At that particular point, Mogere was not sure of what business in the food production industry to tap into.
After a keen analysis into the same, she settled for vegetables processing due to its availability in her home area.
“We live in a rural area, for my neighbors here, they are small scale farmers and so we decided work with that so that we can able to empower ladies around me economically,” she said.
At Frozen Isle, they make three lines of frozen vegetables which include the African indigenous vegetables; managu, kunde,sagaa and terere.
They also make precooked and frozen beans and githeri; black bean, red beans, yellow beans and the baby white maize.
Why frozen food?
Mogere explained that she decided to go the frozen line to make things easy for mothers with demanding jobs.
She noted that most of these mothers don’t find time to prepare highly nutritious foods because they are labour intensive.
“We went with the frozen line because we were thinking, ‘how is this woman who is busy in the office be able to have these vegetables without having to strain,” Mogere added.
Mogere mostly sells her products to the end user due to difficulty in accessing the retail market, although they have their products in select supermarkets.
“I have been consistent in terms of follow up and we’ve reached out to the retailers but each time you’d go they’re a bit unsure because this is a new concept,” she stated.
Preservation
Mogere noted that the frozen vegetables keeps its nutritional value for up to one year when frozen properly.
The vegetables can extend their shelf life even further, depending on how they were packaged and stored
The more airtight a vegetable package is, the better, and it is advisable to use a freezer bag rather than plastic wrap or foil.
