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July 28, 2012
Saturday Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.net
‘Hospitality business; challenging but lucrative’ TEMITOPE OGUNBANKE
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IF YOU ARE INTO
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FAST FOOD BUSINESS he fast food industry is one of the much sought-after busiTHE BEST THING YOU nesses in Nigeria because of the fact that people cannot do without CAN DO IS TO HAVE A food, which has made many people BUILDING OF venture into the hospitality business to satisfy clients’ hunger. While many YOUR OWN went into the business with business motives, some ventured into it based in my mind to have a restaurant of my on passion for the business. own and that was what gave birth to SaHaving worked tirelessly for many voury Restaurant.” organizations in the hospitality busiAccording to Famoriyo, starting an ness as a management consultant, Mr. eatery business is very costly considOyeniyi Famoriyo, in 2001 decided to ering the necessary human establish his own outlet let known as SaSa and capital resourcresourc voury Meals. es involved. He Speaking to Saturday day Mirror on said that getting how he started the business, siness, Famora property to be iyo, the MD/CEO Savoury voury Meals, used as an eateat disclosed that; “Savoury ury is over 10 ery centre is the years, as we started late 2001. Befirst hurdle tha that fore starting Savoury, y, I was into anybody who management consulting ng for many wants to venven Tasty and Tetrazzini eateries. It ture into the was in the course off consulting business busines for those organisations tions that I started building my own. I believe it is better for me to start my own rather than consulting for people and that is what made me start Savoury. I have a great interest in hospitality business and it Famoriyo had always been
must think about. His words: “From the beginning, I knew that the business of eatery involves a property. I knew that if you are into fast food business, the best thing you can do is to have a building of your own. So, I started with that because I knew that if I have building of my own or acquired a land of my own definitely I could get a loan from the bank. The land we are using was first leased to us and we later bought it. To start the business, I also received assistance from banks and friends, and my own money at that time was less than N1 million. “Going into eatery and fast food business involves taking a risk because many things would happen. If the location is not right, you may have problem from Day One. And if the location is right the recipes must also be right and the people working with you must also be right. If your recipe is good and you don’t have right people to prepare it or right people to attend to customers, everything will not be right.” Speaking on the basic challenges facing eatery business in Nigeria, the Savoury boss said duplication of taxes and other charges is really affecting the hospitality business, considering the amount of charges they are paying to local, state and federal governments. “The major challenge in this business has always been government. It is so because in Nigeria you have to build a republic of your own to survive. You have to have your own security, water supply, electricity and many social amenities. For the success of our business, we have even embarked on a lot of cor-
porate social responsibility by giving people around us street light and tarring some bad portion of the roads. If we are doing that, what do you expect from the government? “If people must eat then it means we must sell. The eatery business is lucrative but most of the money goes into buying diesel, repairing generator and payment of government charges. At the state government level, you may deal with about six to eight different ministry and agencies; Ministry of Health, Environment, Tourism and so on. In Lagos State, it is not easy running a business considering the various charges and taxes we pay to different ministries and agencies in the state. “We also have cases where there is duplication of charges. Some of these charges are really affecting our business. You will discover that the Mama Put as the local bukas are called may be killing up to 10 goats on a daily basis and they do not pay the kind of tax that we, who are into eatery business, who do not make up to 10 per cent of such sales, pay.” Talking about the high and low season of the business, Famoriyo said: “In the eatery business, there are high and low seasons. The peak periods for the business are festive periods like Christmas, Easter, Valentine, Muslims festivals and public holidays. The dry season attract more sales for us than the rainy seasons because people don’t like taking themselves out for an appointment during the rains for fear of rain and poor road. So we do have low sales during the rainy seasons.”