A late Ghanaian female entrepreneur who founded her country’s first food processing company was the subject of a Google doodle tribute on Tuesday.
Esther Afua Ocloo became one of Ghana’s most successful entrepreneurs after starting her business in the 1930s with less than a dollar.
Google was celebrating her life on the day she would have turned 98. Ms Ocloo, who died in 2002, is also credited with being a micro-financing pioneer.
A Google doodle is a temporary alteration of the Google’s logo to celebrate major lives or events.
“As both an entrepreneur and an advocate for microlending, ‘Auntie Ocloo’ worked tirelessly to help others like her succeed,” Google said in a statement.
“Esther Afua Ocloo had only six shillings to her name, less than a dollar, when she made and then sold her first jar of marmalade as a teenager in the 1930s.”
After establishing her business under her own name in 1942, she travelled to England to learn the latest techniques in food processing.
Pioneer
On returning home, she shared her new skills with other Ghanaian women. To help these new entrepreneurs access credit which was hard to come by through the mainstream lending channels, she spearheaded the launch of Women’s World Banking (WWB), a micro-financing initiative.
WWB then started providing low-income women with the small loans needed to start their businesses, Google says.
Today, the products from Nkulenu, her company, are exported and sold throughout the world.
The company’s Palm Soup Base – a fruit concentrate sauce used in many Ghanaian recipes – is its most successful product, the BBC’s Vera Kwakofi says.
A part of Nkulenu’s success is that it allows the millions of Ghanaians living abroad to enjoy a taste from home, she adds.
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