Wholesale purchase of cooking oil and flour

Entrepreneur

About Me

My name is Caroline. I am the last child in a family of 3. My elder sister is a housewife with no job, and my brother is a small holder charcoal dealer back in my village.

As of now, my highest academic qualification is a primary school certification: here is why. I was brought up in hardship. I was removed from school when I was 11 years old, in 2006, to go and serve as a househelp in Nairobi. After a year of service, my employer decided to enroll me back into school. Barely a year went by before my family insisted that I go on working or be returned home. I was promptly returned to the village. With no job prospects in the village, and facing a bleak future, I pleaded with my family to let me return to school and at least attain a primary school certification.

My request was reluctantly granted after 2 years. I enrolled back into primary school when I was 14, in 2009, in class 4 and I was far much older than the class. My peers at that age were enrolling in secondary school. I managed to study through and sat the national exams when I was nearly turning 19. I did not perform very well, but got a chance in a local secondary school in 2014.

I was determined to study. Unfortunately I could not. There was no money to finance my education. So I went back home, and my family already had suitors lined up to marry me. Without an education worth falling back on, and without other promising choices, I refused the marriage route and asked my cousin whether I could put up with her as I contemplated my next move. Thankfully, she agreed.

I moved in with her and her home has been my home since 2014. My cousin did not want me to stay idle so she promptly taught me a business, a catering affair! It is the best thing that has ever happened to me! My cousin advised me to take my time and lay some foundation for myself before I can decide to get married, have kids and start a family. So far, the foundation is laying up real fine. Whenever I take time off work, I visit the park and travel a bit.

My Business

I am a proficient cook, I have always been. My cousin, Sherry, told me about the demand for quality but affordable food at the office where she worked and told me that I was going to be the one to provide that food during their lunch breaks. I was mortified at first. I was scared how I would interact with the learned office people, but my cousin had my back.

I started preparing food and packing it in hotpots, then delivering and serving it to my cousin's colleagues at their workplace. The venture was good. I started off with expenses of about $20, mainly buying food, as I used the utensils available and cooking pots, and after the sales I had earned approximately $30. That was after serving only 10 people.

The food I supply is in demand because many working class people crave top-quality food, and they are willing to pay a premium to get it. Since I am a good cook, my cousin spotted the opportunity and directed me! From serving 10 people in one office, my clientele has grown to about 50 people spread across 4 offices.

With the increase in number came some exciting benefits. I was able to save on production costs but maximise on sales. I spend about $30 to produce the food I serve and earn about $65 in sales per day. I work for five days a week and that translates to about $325 in sales. After all costing is done, I remain with about $120 in profits per week!

I manage to save most of the profits since I plan on sitting the secondary school diploma certification as a private candidate soon. Although my plan is not to seek employment after that, it is just for giving me knowledge on new market trends and skills on how I can be a better person on future.

Loan Proposal

As my home cooking business flourishes, I try to find better ways to minimise expenses so that I can remain competitive by offering better prices for my customers. Food prices are always going yet incomes stay constant. It is why I wish to raise a loan to stock up on cooking oil, flour and other shop based cooking items, by purchasing them wholesale, which will give me better price margins and enable me to keep my prices constant despite the food products price changes in the market.

Since I use flour, oil, sugar and spices in almost 100% of my dishes, I foresee, reduced costs in production once I get this loan. I will be saving about 15$ on every bale of flour and about 10$ on oil. The loan will enable me to acquire at least 10 bales of flour and 40 litres of oil.

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