Welcome to our very first foodie blog post. We are so excited about the privilege of sharing our foodie world experience with you. We hope you will also join in sharing yours with us! Whether your goals are better nutrition, food education, new experiences or just a plain old good treat. We are certain that the experience will be fun, nourishing and full of adventure!
My name is Jeremiah Babatunde Oyemade, aka “Fokus” and I’m the founder of the Fokus Group of companies. About a decade ago I left the corporate world and ventured out in search of new innovative and exciting business opportunities. As an avid snacker, I love potato chips and always took along a nice supply of multi flavored products on my trips. My long trek of discovery took me through three continents, several countries and a multitude of cultures and people with interesting tastes and approaches to the food experience that binds us all.
It was on one of my discovery trips to my second home of Lagos, Nigeria that I ran out of my precious chips and found that similar brands of products were, A. Hard to find or only available as expensive imports, B. Local snacks like Plantain Chips or Chin Chin that were great, but didn’t exactly serve the same purpose for me and, C. were virtually alone in the Nigerian snack food market space. Also at this very same point in time, the Nigerian and greater African economies were brimming with explosive growth and being flooded with new investments and creative ideas. Realizing that such an opportunely timed window would not last, I immediately formed Fokus Nigeria LTD. featuring the Fokus Foods and the Strips brands of products.
The years that followed have been wildly filled with ups, downs and mostly sideways progressions forward. However it wasn’t all just work and pain. I can truly say that I’ve experienced positive growth from all my experiences. From learning to adapt product recipes to production processes, team training and management, manufacturing facility setup, government certifications, brand and business development, international supply chain management… I also decided to throw in the minor chore of raising a young family of three wives and one kid??!!? Oops! I meant one wife and three kids. Yep! after our first son, my wife and I had twins (boy and girl). What can I say! “If it ain’t rough, it ain’t me…” Aside from the lovely family and budding business ventures, the true champion of my business sojourns is my taste palate and whole concept of what normal food is.
From the addictive fried Alligator meat in Atlanta to grubbing on tasty (but guilt riddled) ‘farmed’ Turtle stew in the Grand Cayman. Or savoring heavenly fried and stewed Giant Snails in Lagos to being humbled by humungous Jackfruit in Montego Bay. Food is awesome! And if you trek far and wide enough… There’s really nothing off the menu. Which is mostly a good thing! I sincerely believe that we, as humans on earth are explicitly responsible for replenishing it for future generations, even as we consume from it.
As I continue in my journey to build one of the greatest food empires in the world, or maybe just start off with a really profitable food business venture, I want to ensure that it also adds positive value to the people and environments it exists in. I made it mine and our company’s goals to share and expose the world to the other wonderful foods that the rest of the world has to offer. Understanding that not everyone is immediately up to the task of really exotic foods… Here’s popcorn!
One of the hard and useful lessons learned in our product development process was that, change, although constant in life, most often comes slowly. It is important that we, as a food or snack food company, have or create common ground foods to ease new customers into the adventurous world of human foods. I love popcorn of all types, especially the Farm Fair styled, kettle cooked variety. The combination of crunch, sweet and salty is simple and satisfying. If you’re curious patronize us 😀 or you can even sign up with our partner Treasuregram for coupons and occasional free sample offers.
I hope you have enjoyed our very first fokus foodie blog post and are looking forward to sharing your experiences with us. Please do leave a comment, repost and share our blog and website with friends and family. Also contact us with the form on the bottom of the main Home page if you have any questions we can help with. I truly am humbled by your time.
Thank you all for your support,
fokus!