She is the daughter of one of Nigeria's living football living legends but this restless, jet setting individual wants to standout on the entrepreneurial side. And she is actually anxious to make it big without holding on to her parents' apron strings. She is Toluwalope Omotoke, daughter of "Mathematical" Segun Odegbami
Born about 35 years ago, Toluwalope Omotoke Odegbami, daughter of Segun Odegbami, one of Nigeria's football living legends craves and lives an entrepreneurial life from a very young age.
At the tender of age 13, Omotoke, as she is fondly called by friends started cooking for her family and everyone loves her cooking, including her father.
Determined to be successful and be celebrated just like her footballer father, cooking, which Omotoke, had considered as a mere hobby has today turned out to become her meal ticket.
Though she later read Food Technology in school, she revealed that it was never her intention to be a caterer. "Not at all. I never dreamt of becoming a caterer. I just had the privilege of knowing it," she had told Business Courage in an interview.
Omotoke said her guardedly nursed ambition was either to work in NAFDAC or any other food processing company after her graduation, but the fl air she had had for cooking and baking took her straight back to the food preparation industry.
To her, cooking as well as baking has been a lot of fun, though she admits making money from it too. According to her, having realised the potentials in her early enough, the entrepreneurial spirit in her made her to offi cially kick start her cooking and baking career at the age of 15, which incidentally makes it about 20 years that she has been in the food industry.
In the family, whenever she cooks, even her dad, Odegbami, including visitors commend her for a job well done. "People love my food. They used to tell me any time they eat my food, "wow…Toke, obe yi ma dun o",( wow, Toke, this meal is too delicious). Hence I developed interest in it and I told myself that I can do it. So when I started working with Sweet Sensation, Mr. Biggs and many other eateries, I knew they were just giving me the opportunity of everything I needed to do about food."
Toke believes that the art of cooking resides within her family lineage. "Cooking has been in the family's blood. It's in the gene. In the Odegbami family, my father's elder sister, Dupe Odegbami is a caterer; I lived with her then in Ilupeju and learnt a lot from her. My aunt, who also lives in Jos cooks so well too. My mum too does the same thing. Even up till now, in the Odegbami's generation, I can say it's full of caterers ….it's a thing in the gene that I love doing. I love cooking," she said.
Omotoke fi nished her secondary education at saint Theresa College Ibadan in 1996 and later relocated to Kano where she had stayed with one of her Uncles, Jimi Komolafe. It was while in Kano that she did her preliminary at the state College of Education studying Home Economics/Mathematics.
In 1997, she proceeded to Bayero University in Kano to read Food Technology Science.
After her National Youth Service scheme, she worked with Kesse Jabari, a fashion designer but left Jabari a year after to begin her journey into the baking and catering world fully.
She joined Tastee Fried chicken, a fast food enterprise, where she worked for about two years. She also had a brief stopover at Sweet sensation.
Armed with determination and the never-say-stop entrepreneurship guts, in 2006, while in her fi nal year in the university, Omotoke made a bold step that launched her into the world of entrepreneurship b y establishing Mypot.
With the little savings, she had been able to gather, she started baking cakes, preparing small chops and other pastries for sell.
She however got her fi rst major catering job which launched her into limelight when she secured a N2 million catering contract with the Securities and Exchange Commission, (SEC).
Two years after, she discovered she had to diversify into other areas by adding African dishes to her menu list. This time, she established Asabi olowosibi. With Asabi olowosibi, she cooks and supply any typical
Nigerian dishes. "Asabi Olowo sibi basically came about in 2008 while My Pot was started in 2006. It was when people started talking about the typical native food that I prepared that I decided to carve out a name for myself. That's where the name, Asabi Ololwo sibi came from but it's still under Mypot. Mypot basically in Yoruba language is ikoko obe, which is, cooking pot. It's all about cooking," she said.
She recollected that ever since she did the job for SEC, a friend of her which she met while handling the SEC contract even had to contract her on a home basis to teach her how to prepare Edi-ikankong, a calabar local delicacy. So she started visiting her friend's houses every weekend to help her in the cooking of other local delicacies such as efo riro and so on. Anytime she cooked for the friend who was one of the senior staff at SEC then, they will keep the soup in freezer and that was where the idea of doing home service started. Her friend introduced her to some of her colleagues who were equally busy at work.
One area where Toke seems to be making a difference is the home service which she renders by cooking dishes for busy executives. "If you want to cook efo, gbanga soup or whatever, I charge the person per pot. People always have a very tight schedule moving out from their houses as possible to go to their offi ces and also come back home late…what time do they have to cook? But since I have the time to cook, I cook for them, they put the dishes in their freezers and I get paid. I have been doing these for some years now," she gleefully told Business Courage.
Bank executives, lawyers, telecommunications executives among many others are the customers who patronize her for the home service. Most times, a pot of soup last for about a week, and whenever it fi nishes, they call on her to come and cook another one.
Family influence
Though Toke is good at her job and may really not have much trouble getting business, she nonetheless admitted that the good name of her father has been opening more doors for her. "I will say that my father, Segun Odegbami has been so wonderful to me as a father. His name opens doors for me defi nitely. I can't dispute that. But because I am good at what I do, people call me here and there for jobs."
An example she gave was how he was able to help her make one or two contacts during Eko games to get a careering supply job. According to her, though by the time she got there to see the people concerned, she was asked why she didn't come on time and her reply was that; "I don't want to lobby. I believe that my qualifi cation and all the jobs I had handled in the past would qualify me." That was how she got the job. But she noted that if she hadn't done the job well, they wouldn't have called her for some other jobs after the Eko games.
According to her Toke, she had done several other jobs for various state governments which have fetched her several millions of naira.
While the name "Odegbami" has continued to open gates of favours and contracts for Toke, the only child of Odegbami's half-caste second wife, one thing she would like to continue to do is maintaining the integrity of the name. "I like to maintain that name. I won't want to tarnish it. My father had worked so hard to have built that name in a good way and that's why despite the fact that I am married; I am still using the name, Odegbami.
Apart from going into the kitchen world, though she believes that event planning which involves doing the aso-ebi, decorating the venue and at times, contracting the musicians that would perform at the event, is another arm of the business that also fetches good money, many times, she gets the contract and give it out to someone else to carry it out.
She admits that there is a lot of money in the cooking as well as event planning business because she believes there is no week that there won't be a social gathering that would require the service of a caterer or an event planner. Her belief is that, when you are diligent and take the job serious, you will always be called for jobs.
Funding
She plans to start her own eatery as soon as possible. She told Business Courage that she already has already acquired a piece of land with which she hoped "to build a complex comprising catering school, eatery, a mini bar, where there is going to be everything about entertainment and food."
"Right now, am still learning some other ingredients of the business," which specifi cally she called, accountability. Before now, she didn't take calculation serious, but where she is heading now as head of operations, the proprietor, Otunba Wale Oduwale of Chiken Lovers has been able to teach her that aspect of line of business. "I can say I know am very good in food, but not in calculation. Hence, Otunba Wale Oduwale has taught me for instance, how many portion of rice I will get from 1kg, and know the specifi c things and amount I need to involve in a particular project. He has been able to make me balance up what I really wanted to know.
Everyday new ideas come, so you can't stop learning every day. Today, you can see this type of cake, by tomorrow, you will see different shape coming out. So in the cake world, I still go around learning how to bake cake every day. No knowledge is lost."
When it comes to accountability, logistics, Toke says she knows little about them but when it comes to cooking the food, "I can use N10, 000 to cook a pot of eforiro, and you will eat your fi ngers, your palm as a result of its being delicious. But when it comes to costing, you will now discover that the money you used in buying iru and other ingredients is more than the soup you have cooked, so it becomes a loss."
Challenges
Toke admits facing some challenges too as a typical Nigerian business person."There had been lot of challenges as well as disappointments. For instance, there were times people would make order for food, while she was able to get half payment, getting the other balance had always been like a camel passing through the eye of a needle. Practically impossible. But based on such experiences, if a customer doesn't pay fully, Toke told this magazine that she would never take on the job. People, she said, had really cheated her in the past, probably based on her inexperience in doing business.
