Oluwatosin: Caterer, farmer who grew from N10, 000 to N750, 000 in 1 yr

Omowaire Oluwatosin is the founder and chief executive officer of My Dinner Hub, a catering and event management firm focused on food delivery, events and personal catering services.

Oluwatosin, a 500-level Crop, Soil and Pest Management undergraduate of the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), started trade at the age of 10. She went into trade when her mother could not earn enough money to provide for her siblings after the demise of the father.

In a bid to help herself and assist her siblings, Oluwatosin started out cooking for events, a business she had passion for and experience on. After many years of cooking for events, she was able to save enough money to pursue an undergraduate degree.

At the university, she went into cooking for birthdays, get-together and events. After making encouraging profits for years, Oluwatosin decided to establish her business in 2016, giving it the name ‘My Dinner Hub.’

The undergraduate started her business with 10,000 last year and was able to get a start-up fund from Women in Business and Public Service (WIMBIZ) in 2016 to embark on a student-focused food project.

Currently, the business has grown remarkably and is worth about N750, 000. This feat was achieved seven months after registration. She has three full-time staff members and hires part-time workers at times depending on the projects she is handling.

When asked about the challenge confronting her business, Oluwatosin told Start-up Digest that lack of finance was the greatest challenge her business suffered from. She said it limited her, preventing her from establishing a business early as she was unable to secure enough funds for business registration and operations.

She urged the Federal Government to provide adequate grants and loan opportunities to youths with entrepreneurship minds, stating that a lot of youths with wonderful business ideas were yet to go commercial owing to inadequate funds to finance their businesses.

Apart from finance, Oluwatosin said high cost of food items and inadequate power supply were major challenges confronting her business now. She stated that adequate power supply was the backbone of any economy, calling on the government to ensure adequate supply of power for start-ups and businesses to survive.

Oluwatosin told Start-up Digest that she sourced her raw materials for cooking and event planning from local markets across the country.

In her words, “I source my raw materials for cooking locally, community weekly market and from my farm. I have a farm where I grow vegetables and some other kind of crops.”

The caterer, who is also a farmer, stated that her business had been able to grow in recession because it brought together local cuisines in an attractive style while guaranteeing customer satisfaction through excellent service delivery.

“We have been able to focus on catering, with specific target in bringing the local cuisines in an attractive style to your event. We also focus on customer satisfaction by making great meals, which is well garnished and rich with the dinner-hub signature,” she said.

“The rate at which food stuffs increases in the market is alarming, but we have been able to work around that by buying in bulk and keeping customers at our doorstep,” Oluwatosin further said.

She likewise told Start-up Digest that she would tell her younger self to be open to identify problems around and turn them into value that would be exchange for money.

According to her, the country is yet to tap from the huge opportunities in the food industry, which is wide with so many prospects, adding that the country was yet to start producing naturally sourced food seasoning and herbs that could be exported to earn foreign exchange.

She advised young Nigerians to look to agriculture as the sector had a number of un-exploited opportunities.

“The food industry is wide with so many prospects. One of the untapped parts is the making of naturally sourced food seasoning and herbals which can be exported for exchange,” said Oluwatosin.