In the early 1940s, a young woman in the Gold Coast spent a few shillings on sugar, oranges and jars and began making marmalade. She sold it to schoolchildren and later won a contract to supply the military with juice and marmalade. Her name was Esther Afua Ocloo, and the small business she started grew into Nkulenu Industries, one of Ghana’s best-known food processing companies. Her story is often told as one of the founding examples of Ghanaian entrepreneurship.
Early life and the military contract
Esther Ocloo was born in 1919 in Peki, in the Volta Region. She attended Achimota School, where she was taught cooking and food preservation, skills that would shape her career. After leaving school, she began making marmalade and orange juice with very little money. She sold her products locally and built a reputation for quality. During the Second World War, she won a contract to supply marmalade and juice to the military in the Gold Coast. The order helped her grow the business and buy equipment.
Nkulenu Industries and women in business
She later studied food preservation in England, returning with new skills and ideas for expanding her company. Her company became Nkulenu Industries, based in Madina near Accra. It produced canned and bottled foods, including palm soup base, which became a familiar product in Ghanaian kitchens and in African shops abroad. Ocloo was a strong advocate for women in business. She was a founding figure in Women’s World Banking, an organisation set up in the 1970s to help women gain access to credit.
She also served in public roles, including advising on industrial development in Ghana.
Recognition, death and a Google Doodle
In 1990 she was a joint winner of the Africa Prize for Leadership for the Sustainable End of Hunger, awarded by the Hunger Project. Esther Ocloo died in 2002. She is remembered as a pioneer of Ghanaian industry and a mentor to many women entrepreneurs. In April 2017, Google marked what would have been her 98th birthday with a Doodle shown in several countries. The tribute introduced her story to many young people who had never heard of her.
Esther Ocloo began with a few shillings and a pot of oranges. Tins of palm soup base with her company’s name are still sold in shops from Accra to London.
.jpg){kind=link}
