Business
How I Would Build a Food Operating System in Nigeria
Some of us are still busy running an old version of a good business in our hands.
I wish more business owners would find quiet time to sit down and ask themselves a simple question:
How can I completely rethink the business I already know?
If I entered the food and restaurant business today, eehh… I would approach it very differently.
I would build a food operating system.
I know that sounds like plenty grammar, so let me explain.
Most people entering the food business are thinking about rice, soup, swallow, chicken, delivery, tables and chairs.
I would be thinking about something else:
How do I get one customer to eat from me 25 times every month?
If you can answer that question properly, it can change your entire food business.
Because one of the biggest problems many restaurants have is that they wake up every morning looking for fresh customers again.
I wouldn't want only customers. I would want food subscribers.
Imagine a company with 100 staff.
Instead of waiting and hoping those 100 people randomly visit my restaurant, I would approach the company and say:
"Let us handle lunch for your staff from Monday to Saturday."
Now, instead of selling one random plate of rice, I am managing part of that company's daily food needs.
If I can get 20 companies like that, I already know that a portion of my revenue is coming before I open the kitchen in the morning.
That is the kind of food business I would build.
I would start with one serious central kitchen
I would not rush to open ten restaurants.
That is another mistake people make.
I would first build one serious central kitchen. Clean. Structured. Organised.
Every pot of soup should have a recipe.
Every portion should have a standard.
Every ingredient should have a cost.
And I should know the margin on every plate that leaves that kitchen.
One of the silent killers in the food business is waste.
A little extra meat here.
Oil wasted there.
Food spoiling.
Staff eating anyhow.
Wrong portions being served.
Purchases being made without proper records.
Cash disappearing here and there.
Before you know it, the restaurant looks busy every day, customers are plenty, but the owner cannot confidently tell you whether the business is actually making money.
Hiaaaa!
I have mentored plenty of business owners around this same issue. They have customers, they have sales, yet they hardly see the profit.
Just as we do with spare parts, I would know exactly what it costs me to produce one plate of jollof rice before deciding what that plate should sell for.
Your customer data is money
I would also use technology seriously.
Why should somebody order food from me 50 times and I still don't know what they like?
I should know their name, phone number, office, favourite meals, birthday, last order and how often they buy.
That data is money.
If Emeka normally orders vegetable soup every Friday and suddenly hasn't ordered for three weeks, somebody should be asking:
"Oga Emeka, you don abandon us?"
That is customer relationship.
You don't wait for hunger to remind your customer that your food business exists.
One kitchen can produce many businesses
Another place many food businesses leave money on the table is by thinking only about plates of food.
The same central kitchen can produce:
- Office meal subscriptions
- Family weekend trays
- Frozen soups
- Ready-to-cook sauces
- Corporate catering
- Event food boxes
- School meals
- Executive meal plans
- Emergency late-night meals
- Christmas food hampers
- Branded spices
One kitchen, properly structured, can support several revenue streams.
That is similar to what we do in the automobile business. You stop looking at the business as one product and start looking at everything the existing infrastructure can produce.
I would pay serious attention to breakfast.
Plenty Nigerian food businesses are fighting over lunch and dinner.
Meanwhile, thousands of workers leave home very early every morning without eating properly.
Why can't I build a breakfast subscription around offices?
Monday to Saturday, maybe between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m.
Tea. Akara. Bread. Eggs. Yam. Pap. Fruit. Small chops. Different combinations for different days.
The beauty of subscriptions is that I can know tomorrow's demand today.
That means I can plan my purchasing better, prepare the right quantities and reduce waste.
Now the business becomes far more predictable.
Delivery would be part of the product.
I would also take delivery very seriously.
If 40% of my customers are eating outside my restaurant, then delivery is part of what I am selling.
The food arriving hot matters.
The packaging matters.
The rider's behaviour matters.
How quickly somebody responds on WhatsApp matters.
Even the experience of opening that package matters.
You are selling food, convenience, trust and experience together.
A restaurant cannot spend serious money perfecting the meal and then allow terrible packaging, rude delivery or poor customer service to spoil the entire experience.
I would turn the restaurant into a media business.
Some food businesses are cooking wonderful food and hiding it like secret society.
Me? I would show the kitchen.
I would show the ingredients.
I would show the chef.
I would show the hygiene.
I would explain why our soup tastes the way it does.
I would show customers enjoying the food.
I would tell stories, create narratives and entertain people while doing it.
I always teach businesses to become media businesses first.
So my restaurant would become a media company that happens to sell food.
Because when people consistently see your business, understand your process and enjoy your content, it becomes easier for them to remember you when hunger comes.
I would build the system before opening branches.
And if the first location starts working very well, I still wouldn't immediately start opening branches everywhere.
First, I would ask:
Can somebody else run this exact operation without me?
Is the recipe documented?
Is there a purchasing system?
Stock control?
Customer service process?
Cash control?
Staff training?
Brand standards?
Delivery process?
If the answer is yes, then we can start discussing more branches and eventually franchising.
That is when the business is ready to scale.
Because if the owner is still the only person who knows how the soup is prepared, the business is not ready for ten branches.
People must eat.
And one more thing. I know this is getting long.
I would stop seeing myself simply as somebody who sells food.
I would see myself as somebody solving a daily human need.
See eehhh, people must eat.
So the question becomes:
How can I make eating easier, faster, safer, more predictable and more enjoyable for a particular group of people?
That is the opportunity.
The food businesses that will do well are the ones that understand food, systems, distribution, customer data, branding and recurring customers.
Put those things together and you are no longer running only a restaurant.
You are building a food ecosystem.
But business nah mind oohh.
NC
About the Author
Engr. Ndubuisi Chidomere, MNSE is a Nigerian engineer-turned-entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Pamtech Group, a diversified conglomerate operating in automotive, oil & gas, media, and innovation sectors. He is a Forbes Business Council Member and thought leader on African entrepreneurship.
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