Meet Hakeem Jimo, the co-founder of VeggieVictory, a Lagos based company that was the first to introduce vegan meat substitutes into the Nigerian market on a commercial scale.
Hakeem and his wife Bola Adeyanju started VeggieVictory as a vegan restaurant, after Hakeem, himself a vegan for many years, came back from a trip to Asia where he found many vegan restaurants through the app HappyCow. Back in Lagos, he didn’t find a single one. So he and Bola decided to change that.
Once the restaurant had taken off, they wanted to reach more people and decided that instead of starting more restaurants, they would bring out a product, a 100% plant based meat substitute on soy and wheat basis that is suitable for the Nigerian cuisine and unlike many more premium priced meat alternatives abroad, is actually cheaper than meat.
In the interview Hakeem shares about
- How he came up with the idea
- How they developed their Vchunks Plant-Based Meat
- And why he believes the Nigerian market needs its own plant based meat alternative
We also get a taste of VeggieVictory’s veg-Suya, which tastes amazing and hear what Hakeems advice for young Nigerians is.
There is a lot of gold in this interview for budding foodpreneurs and so we hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we did.
And now, without further ado, enter Hakeem.
