Recipes for Success in Zambia

by Stuart Taylor

“You are a vision carrier. Look in the mirror every day and see the person who is going to make that vision a reality.” One of Zambia’s most successful entrepreneurs is addressing a lecture hall of students at the University of Manitoba’s Asper School of Business.

Dressed in a striking chitenge suit and matching headdress, Sylvia Banda holds the young business students enthralled with her inspiring story of success. Twenty-three years ago – without even telling her husband what she was doing – Sylvia started a small restaurant with a few items she took from her own home: some vegetables, meat, corn meal and a small two-plate cooker that her husband had used as a bachelor.

That first day, with no advertising budget, she relied on the delicious smells of her cooking to sell her product. “I opened the windows and the door and I could see the steam from my cooking fighting to get out,” she says. “That was my advertising. Very soon, people were coming in saying ‘Oh have you opened today?’ Then I knew my advert had worked.”

Sylvia Banda with Board Chair Ron Enns at IDE Canada's Fall Banquet, where Mrs. Banda was keynote speaker

Serving a packed house, Sylvia realized that she was missing one vital ingredient. “The people were all standing, looking unsure,” she continues. “Then I realized I had no tables and no chairs.” With some quick thinking, she addressed her customers. “I said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, what you are experiencing is a new concept in catering. We call it Standing Buffet!’”

From that humble beginning, Sylvia has built a multi-million dollar business step-by-step, starting with a barter arrangement with her neighbour – a carpenter - exchanging meals for finished chairs and tables. Today, her company Sylva Catering comprises restaurants, a catering school and now plans for a five-star hotel.

One division of the company – Sylva Food Solutions – has played a significant role in re-introducing Zambians to their own traditional foods. Sylvia researched indigenous foods and processing techniques that had been gradually disappearing over the past 50 years, replaced by convenient and status-rich Western foods. Using modern processing techniques and packaging, Sylvia has boosted local and international interest in a range of traditional foods. In October, she received an award from the President of Zambia for her role in promoting indigenous cuisine.

While her success alone is impressive, what makes her truly remarkable – and such an interesting partner for IDE – is her commitment to creating opportunities for her fellow Zambians. Sylva Food Solutions sources its product from over 6,000 small-scale farmers throughout the country. These are the very same farmers that IDE works with. While IDE offers low-cost irrigation equipment and agronomic support, Sylvia offers training in post-harvest processing and – most importantly – a ready market for what farmers produce. Once farmers complete the training course on solar drying and preparation of the traditional foods for market, Sylva Food Solutions signs a memorandum of understanding, enlisting those farmers as suppliers.

This is exactly the kind of market opportunity for small farmers that IDE is always looking for. Similar arrangements with other businesses such as FreshPikt – Zambia’s only cannery – and suppliers to national supermarket chains have created opportunities for thousands of farmers. And it is working. Last year, farmers made an average of $254 additional income in the first 12 months after joining an IDE-organized group marketing produce to one of these customers. That is a huge leap for farmers used to living on less than a dollar a day.

IDE has always believed that local entrepreneurs are the key to creating new opportunities in poor communities. People with the drive and vision of Sylvia Banda look at problems and see only opportunity. What she has accomplished with her company – promoting traditional cuisine and offering a new market to thousands of farmers – would be impossible with the type of parachuted-in solutions too often employed in the world of aid.

It is a breath of fresh air to have an African entrepreneur – and a woman at that – lecturing Canadian business students on the ingredients for success. During her recent visit to Canada, Sylvia also challenged many seasoned and successful business people with her drive, determination and ingenuity.

And of course, we at IDE are also vision carriers – with the goal of creating income opportunities for poor rural households always in front of us. Working with partners like Sylvia keeps us focused on this compelling vision of a world where small-scale farmers are transformed from objects of charity to producers of value.

In Sylvia Banda’s words, “Don’t ever give up. Don’t let others tell you it can’t be done. It can be done. Look in your mirror and see the person who is going to do it.”