Mama's Kitchen

I thought it was high time that I wrote a little about our little business venture over here...Mama's Kitchen. As the name suggests, the Mama's Kitchen products are home baked goods such as cookies and brownies that are sold in the local supermarkets here and to some safari companies. I think in the West we take for granted that we can rock on up to any supermarket and be surrounded by choice for snacks. Fancy a cookie? Here, have 5 different varieties. Feel like a take away snack? How about 2 aisles worth for choice. Not so here in Tanzania. When it comes to convenience, I-just-feel-like-something-sweet foods, the choice is seriously lacking. This might be an excellent thing for our waistlines, but let's face it...when you have walked up and down the dusty main street for several hours trying to get all the little jobs done that take hours here, who wouldn't feel like something little to snack on? That's where our products come in.

Let me tell you how Mama's Kitchen came about. At the end of last year, Corinne and I started to think about ways that we might be able to bring some support into this work we're in, helping out mentors with living costs and the like. After a few different trials and failures, we hit upon the cookie idea. Initially we thought that the sole market would be in safari companies, aimed at Western visitors who are quite partial to a bit of morning tea while out viewing wild animals. A few taste tests and recipe perfecting sessions later, we had our first client...a friend who runs a safari company and was quite happy to trial our products and see how customers liked them. Fast forward to today and we are now with the same safari company and also in 2 local supermarkets. At last count, our products on the shelf at one supermarket sold out within a week which is better than we had hoped for. Mama's Kitchen is officially a part of East Africa Development which is the business department of The Joshua Foundation.

The latest hit? Dark chocolate brownie. Mmmm. This one is almost worth making a trip over to Tanzania for. Just in case you needed any arm twisting!