Winning Wednesday with Belema Alagun
It’s Winning Wednesday and this week, we have Belema Alagun, CEO of Britts Foods a start-up focused on delivering the best of sandwiches and smoothies to customers. Belema is one of the 1,000 selected TEF entrepreneurs from 54 African countries. She started her business in a small one-bedroom apartment and has been able to transform her business to a point where they own their pick-up hub. In her words, “I was able to see the importance of implementing all the processes which I was taught under the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme.”
Catch up with the health conscious Belema in this week’s episode of Winning Wednesday.
TEF: How did you get the concept for Britts Foods?
Belema Alagun: I was quite unhealthy as a teenager. I had no education on the benefits of a healthy lifestyle and this impacted my confidence as a child. During my university years, I started exploring new cities and became unconsciously aware of how easy it was to pick up a healthy snack or veggie without any hassle. I saw the huge difference when I returned home and kept searching everywhere for healthy food products to eat during lunch at work but all I saw was the same old unhealthy, processed products. So I became making salads from home to take to work and that ignited the curiosity in me- I would leave work late, get through Lagos traffic to rush to the stores to pick up whatever veggies I could find to make my salads for lunch the next day and this was stressful. One day, I started thinking, there has to be someone out there who wants to eat healthy just like me without the hassle of making it themselves. I started my research and God came through for me with the idea of Britts Foods. So I ran with the vision and started making healthy food products at fair prices on a large scale for every customer to pick up as easy as they pick up processed unhealthy foods.
TEF: How does your company help the community where it is located?
BA: We partner with certain local farmers within the community as well as third party local resource personnel for products which do not grow within Lagos. We also currently offer discounts to customers through ongoing strategic neighbourhood partnership scheme. (Britts Foods is located on Victoria Arobieke Street, Lekki Phase 1, Lagos, Nigeria).
TEF: How did you feel when you found out you had been selected to participate in the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme?
BA: I found out a few hours after I had just resigned from my legal job, I was feeling very vulnerable and honestly, I had even forgotten I even applied for the programme. As you can imagine, I just started crying tears of joy upon hearing Mr. Elumelu announce my nomination. I truly felt God came through for me at that moment- it was an out of world feeling of his grace in my life. I cannot explain it. I felt grateful, blessed and that my steps were truly being ordained by God.
