An award-winning African eatery is celebrating its 10th anniversary after overcoming a saturated food market against all odds and winning over customers.
Nkolo is a Bolton based catering company that offers fast food Cameroon cuisine for dine-in or take-out. Some of their main menu items are grilled sea bream, crispy beef spinach, comedone curry goat, safari Jollof rice, and oxtail.
Alan, the chef, said that the business concept was brought about by an organization called the Future Factory and the University of Nottingham.
The Future Factory and Nkolo embraced the idea of promoting and conserving African cuisine, which they still uphold today.
The University of Nottingham provided assistance to the business by assigning a student to assist in creating the marketing plan, which has resulted in success.
Looking back on the last 10 years, owner and Chef, Mr. Alan talks about some of the challenges the cuisine has faced since its inception. One major one was diving into the already fully dominated food market.
According to statistics published by Statista, Indian, Chinese, or Thai food has been popular in the UK from 2006 to 2021
Chef Alan said: “When we’re coming into a new market, it’s always going to be a chaos or an argument on how really we can convince people that what we bring in as an offer is better than what is already existing.”
Nkono takes pride in its ability to successfully bring together people of diverse ethnic backgrounds so they have the opportunity to try the African food they provide.
According to Alan, 70 percent of Nkono’s customers are not Africans but rather members of other ethnic groups. Chef Alan says he feels like a true pioneer of African cuisine because of this.
Speaking of achievements, Nkono has received a number of awards, including a £5,000 prize from the University of Nottingham.
Chef Alan believes that Nkolo will grow and become more astute over the next 10 years, inspiring others with similar talent to enter the market and rise to the level of other sophisticated food markets.