For continental traders like Robert Mensah and Nomkhosi Shongwe who sell organic soaps made of cocoa, the border bans induced by the pandemic have meant undelivered products and a backlog of work.



Ghana, the beautiful country in West Africa, famous for its cocoa, is one of the world’s largest exporters of the natural product. The humble bean is also used to make organic black soap, favored by many for its dermatological benefits.



But the current Covid 19-induced lockdown in the country has meant that Accra-based traders like Robert Mensah are not seeing any monetary returns for their esoteric organic cocoa products.



The brand he founded, named Akwaaba, produces and supplies ‘raw African black soap’, organic cocoa butter and even shea butter (another West African specialty) to overseas markets.



Mensah’s entrepreneurial journey had initially even included a stint in South Africa, when he sold djembe drums in the quaint old suburb of Yeoville in Johannesburg, but then, decided to return home to Ghana for good and start selling the soap.



“I left South Africa about three years ago to set up this organic black soap business to sell locally and internationally. The business has been operating for over two years, employing three people; two of assist with packaging and the remaining one is a dispatch driver,” he says.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="768" height="1024" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Robert-Mensah-768x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-44381" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Robert-Mensah-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Robert-Mensah-300x400.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Robert-Mensah-600x800.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Robert-Mensah-225x300.jpg 225w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Robert-Mensah.jpg 810w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px" /><figcaption>Robert Mensah</figcaption></figure>



Like most other countries in Africa, Ghana too has travel restrictions, so this means Mensah cannot make deliveries to other towns.



“International trading is one of our biggest challenges as all borders and airports are closed.”



Mensah had orders that were meant for overseas deliveries but at the moment, his goods are stuck, although production is ongoing.



“It’s very tough, that is how the world has come to be, for now,” he says.



All he can do, for now, is mentally travel back and forth in time.



In 2018, when his business was still new, he recalls receiving an order online from Nomkhosi Shongwe, a South African curious about his organic skin products.



Shongwe, an advertising professional in Johannesburg, who is now Mensah’s business associate, had been researching organic products when she stumbled upon the black soaps.



“I just saw the benefits of African soap and shea butter online and searched for an African supplier and Mensah’s name popped up. I ordered the soaps to try them out and possibly sell. People liked it and I promoted the business on social media and I now sell it nationally.”



From Ghana to South Africa, her woes are the same as Mensah’s.



She says business has also been slow since the lockdown effected in South Africa from March 27. She is unable to collect the supply delivered prior to the lockdown because of travel restrictions. &nbsp;



“The product is in high demand globally and locally; customers locally have even made deposits in case they run out of money post the lockdown.”



Luckily, Shongwe has another source of income so is not solely reliant on the sales of the organic products.



But the business is dependent on social media promotions, as she regularly posts and educates people about the organic products.



“I am comfortable knowing that the information about the product is out there and whoever searches for skin solutions might come across my page and all the information is there. So the business manages itself while I am still busy with my nine-to-five [other job],” she offers.

Nomkhosi Shongwe

The Dark Patch In The Black Soap Business

The Ebola virus is spreading across Africa, taking fear with it.
“They say Ebola has no cure. The unknown has arrived. Nobody knows how to deal with this Ebola, not even the government!” John-Thomas Mensah, an Accra-based taxi driver tells FORBES AFRICA in the Ghanaian capital.
The Ebola scourge has spawned new social rules, with people being told they are not allowed to hug or shake hands. New superstitions have arisen, with some believing that drinking or bathing with salty water and eating the West African plant, bitter kola, will treat the disease. Some businesses are cashing in on the rush for disinfectants, soaps and hand sanitizers.
In August, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the West Africa Ebola outbreak a public health emergency. It triggered global alarm as countries stepped up precautions and testing. It is the largest Ebola outbreak to date and began in Guinea in March. Liberia has been the worst hit, with 70% of the casualties. Ebola has infected nearly 2,500 and claimed 1,427 lives, mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Nigeria recorded 5 deaths as at the end of August.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-3117" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/shutterstock_152407592-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
Beyond medicine, the epidemic has dampened business and left the informal economy, that fuels West Africa’s cross-border commerce, in a coma. Millions of West Africans are traveling traders and workers who crisscross the region’s porous borders for their daily bread.
Nigeria, which accounts for around 168 million of West Africa’s 260 million people, has not shut its borders, but almost every other country in the region has stopped border traffic, all in a bid to restrict the spread of Ebola.
Airlines discontinued flights to and from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and neighboring countries. Freight rates to West Africa are expected to rise as ship owners avoiding the region are choosing to berth at alternative ports. In mid-August, a Chinese-flagged ship heading out of Sierra Leone to Cape Verde had its crew quarantined in Sao Vicente.
The Ebola scare has also reared its ugly head in South Africa. The most worrying was a patient in August who displayed low risk symptoms and was admitted to the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital as a precaution. Luckily, the patient tested negative for Ebola at the special diseases ward at the hospital.
&#8220;The patient is in isolation and there is no need for the general public to panic. He will not be put in contact with another patient. He is in isolation, in a special ward that deals with hemorrhagic fever,&#8221; says Joe Maila, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health.
Eleven hospitals across South Africa were issued with protective gear in preparation for any possible outbreak, says Maila.
East Africa is also taking precautions.
The health sector there is poorly funded and all member states agree that they need to coordinate efforts to keep Ebola at bay. Little of this is evident on the ground.
Uganda has suffered from Ebola in the past and claims it is well prepared. Together with Rwanda and Burundi, Uganda borders the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has confirmed strains of the virus.
The region is on high alert and any slight indication of the virus in these countries may lead to the type of isolation experienced in West Africa. Business, including East Africa’s fledging oil and gas sector, will be hit hard.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-3118" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/454132450-300x205.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="205" />
WHO classified Kenya as a high-risk area because of the number of flights from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to the infected countries. Kenya Airways, the third largest carrier on the continent, is feeling the pinch after suspending some of its flights to West Africa. RwandAir and Ethiopian Airways are yet to follow suit but promise stringent surveillance.
Help has come from far and near. The United States’ (US) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has about 60 disease detectives and other health experts in the region. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has reportedly committed $14.5 million. The Wellcome Trust and Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID) have also announced a joint $10.8-million emergency research fund.
Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, through his Dangote Foundation, has given $3.2 million to the Ebola Emergency Operation Centre in Lagos, where the nation’s first case of Ebola was diagnosed in Liberian-American national Patrick Sawyer who died in a Lagos hospital four days after arriving from Liberia.
Despite these measures, and assurances by the WHO and local authorities, sections of the international community continue to fear that Ebola could spread across the vast African continent. With multinationals placing travel restrictions to West Africa, trips to Africa are either being postponed or canceled. The tourism sector in East and Southern Africa has been the hardest hit.
Ebola is not going away in a hurry.

Our Worst Nightmare

Edward Moshole was destined for a life as a cleaner in a factory; until inspiration came on a breath of fresh cherry-scented air in a storage room surrounded by detergents. Now the former cleaner sells 70,000 bottles of detergent a month to the largest retail shopping chains in South Africa, worth R12 million ($1 million) a year.
“A broomstick is what started my business. It was the only thing that I owned… Getting a job as a cleaner at Enterprise changed my life; them giving me the boots and overalls and saying ‘here, clean’. I could feel in my heart I wanted to be something more,” he says.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-2542" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_7339-300x111.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="111" />
With humble beginnings in the small township of Gapane, a place few have heard of in the Limpopo province of South Africa, Moshole’s story is uncommon. He grew up without parents from the age of 16 and failed the eighth grade five years in a row. Moshole says when he was young he never dreamed he could become a millionaire.
His life changed when he moved to Cape Town to live with his brother. He says the move woke him up. Moshole finished his schooling and became a cleaner in a factory run by food chain Enterprise. In this factory, in a two-square-meter storage room that smelled of cherries; among piles of detergent, bleach, cleaners and soaps, Moshole had an idea.
“Getting into that store room, I could see that the quality doesn’t measure the performance of the cleaners. I could improve things. I could see myself becoming a detergent manufacturing champion,” he says.
It began with $6 and a broom stick says Moshole. The then cleaner went directly to a manufacturer and bought a 5-liter bleach bottle. His first sales pitch was short and simple.
“I went to an ordinary person and said ‘look I’ve got detergent, I’ve got cleaner and they go for R15 ($1.30) a liter’,” he says.
Moshole’s part-time business took off. He targeted his co-workers who finished work too late to make it to the shops. A few months later, Moshole began selling door-to-door. He moved to spaza shops and sold to neighbors.
Moshole soon grew tired of the life of a middleman salesman and decided to create his own brand. With the money he earned, he bought a pile of 25-liter spice drums from Enterprise for around $1 each. He spent the following weekends churning detergent with a homemade metal mixer in his backyard.
“At the end of the day my hands were blistered,” he recalls.
For three years, Moshole toiled over his blue spice drums. His brand, Chem-Fresh, garnered the interests of supermarket giant Pick n Pay, owned by Raymond Ackerman, who is ranked 38th on FORBES’ list of richest Africans. It was the big break that Moshole needed.
The deal took seven years to sign. Along the way, Moshole learnt some hard lessons about mass-market production. One of them was to change from an informal backyard business to a formal one. He named his company ‘ebinter’ and started selling his Chem-Fresh products through it. Moshole also learnt he needed to become an accountant as well as a salesman. But it was the competition in the detergent business that was hardest to handle.
“Retail must retain a formal market. It’s tough. You negotiate with a buyer who takes 300 calls a day from others who supply the same product as you. Then there you are competing with the multinationals and then you are competing with the companies who own no-name brands. Your product needs to be cheap and needs to be of a consistent high quality,” says Moshole.
These days, Moshole’s factory in Wynberg, an industrial sector a few kilometers outside of Sandton, is a far cry from his backyard. Thousands of plastic bottles are piled to the ceiling. A $90,000 mixer churns bath soaps and hand wash. Another mixer prepares bleach for the day. Moshole says it takes half an hour to produce 500 liters of Chem-Fresh bleach.
His clientele has now spread across supermarket chains Spar, Pick n Pay, Massmart and Dischem. The last two were recently acquired in December.
Despite landing these promising contracts the detergent maker remains humble. He keeps the broom that he started with as a reminder of where his dreams began, minus the brush which fell off a few years ago.
With $6 and a broomstick, Moshole began selling detergent to his colleagues, bottle by bottle. Now, he sells them in the thousands. What’s more, Moshole proudly claims he has never missed a delivery.

Tag: soaps

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

The Dark Patch In The Black Soap Business

Our Worst Nightmare

The Unlikely Millionaire Cleans Up