 We will look into how young people are benefiting from this industry of tourism in terms of food and this is what I am speaking to Prince Stanley. He wants to call himself, I know him with another name but for the purpose of this show I will refer to him as Prince Stanley. It's a pleasure to have you here. I know for a while I have been following you on social media and I have been seeing you post food and I am like, what is wrong with this? I mean, are you kind of advertising for people, what goes on? Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to explain what it is that we are doing. My name is Stanley Prince but most people know me as MC Stano. I am the admin of a WhatsApp group that is called Food is Kenya which is a platform that brings together food enthusiasts who come together and just share pictures and videos of food, network, give recommendations, give discounts on food products and services and we patron restaurants and eateries that are owned by the members of the group. We have three WhatsApp groups, the main one that started 5 months ago and we branched out to Mombasa and we are going to Kisumu very soon. This is a group of now about 500 people and the idea and the group has over 50 restaurant owners and people who are caterers and that kind of a thing. So the reason why we put this thing together is that we realize that the food industry or food service is something that will always be there, come COVID, come whatever. People will always find money to eat, otherwise you will not survive. So we came together to do what we call communal marketing and that's one thing that most people do not understand. They wonder why is it that I'm always posting about food. It's not about just food per se but it's about empowering the youth because you see if you are a restaurant owner and you are in a WhatsApp group and you have 200 people eating at your restaurant every day, your business will stay afloat. We are giving you a cash injection. There are people who bake cakes, that kind of a thing. So you have bakers, you have people who cook different kinds of foods, wedding caterers. You have restaurant owners, you have people who have stuff in different restaurants and what kind of food can you have been able to do if you have organized food meetups 7 in Nairobi so far, the last one being at Magan Beans Restaurant Village Market. So every month or so we go to a different restaurant and we promote that business and that's part of sampling the different culture. Thus we are empowering the youth who run those restaurants because most of us are young people. You have people who run these businesses below the age of 35 and they do this for a living so we are supporting their business. We were in Mombasa on September 26th and we were able to have about 50 people in a restaurant no alcohol, just food and it's a new kind of domestic tourism why you are focusing on the food that a particular culture community is consuming. Alright, I want you to hold on that thought as we take a very short break and when we come back we will dig deep into how Mombasa was and the rest of the places you go and of course you will also be looking into in terms of the customer relations and maybe how do I move from if I have this small business how do I make it grow as far as food is of concern and of course even other areas of entrepreneurship. Keep it right if we will be taking a very short break. When we come back there is much more into this interview, stay tuned. Why 254. Imagine. Thank you for staying with us. We are having a discussion on business today. We are looking into Tim Foodis which is a Kenyan platform for food enthusiast whose motto is Friveling Life Through Food and Friendship. Stanley is the guest I am having today and he just mentioned of the places they have been and how things have been but we need to get deeper into if it's a business how are you building customer relations and customer sustenance because niki kula leo ala fukesha ni kwa sepungi. Thank you for that question. One of the experiences, one of the benefits that Tim Foodis Kenyan is going to be able to assist in terms of youth empowerment and especially within the food industry is to provide a credible platform for customer feedback. We have as I mentioned over 50 restaurants and catering services represented within our network and every time a member goes to this place and does not get service satisfactory you are able to give instant feedback to the highest level of management because the restaurant proprietor is in the group and you will be able to take action on your complaint either your salad was not fresh or there was an insect in the food or a waiter attempted to give you a receipt without an ETR these small business malpractices or challenges which we face in our small businesses you are able as a business owner you are able to improve your business because you have a platform that gives you direct contact with your customers in a very friendly environment it's not very critical like you have Yelp or other services but we are giving people a platform where they can be able to interact and thus improve their business services and that is a critical element Hillary that we are hoping as Team Foodies Kenya will be able to actually expand and have restaurants and food services that are actually registered with Team Foodies Kenya and are accredited we can tell our members we want you guys to go and eat at our agas because service is good fish is good that kind of a thing and they can be able to see feedback from customers basically to give you a localized customer feedback appreciation you've mentioned you've been moving around what informs your movement why would you go to Mombasa when you go there are you looking to the cattle dishes or you're going off to the foreign dishes one of the things that Team Foodies Kenya does our motto is flavoring life through food and friendships so we hope to bring people together every time we have a meet up people can be able to do business networking social networking we have a couple in the network we've been together for six months and they met on the group and I'm very proud of that so I hope to attend that wedding very soon the second thing that is very important for Team Foodies Kenya is celebrating Kenyan culture through food and if you look at the meet ups that we've been able to do so far we've been able to have a Chinese cuisine meet up you've had one that focused on Ethiopian you had one that did West African and you had one that appreciated African traditional food that is Nairobi because Nairobi is a cosmopolitan area you're going to see a lot more wider than that but when we go outside Nairobi we visit areas and we want to sample the local cuisine of that community so that you can be able to appreciate their culture so it's not just going to eat but we want to go and do domestic tourism so when you went to Mombasa on September 26 throughout the weekend we had Madafu which is a coconut drink many people are not familiar about you had a lot of the coastal Arab and Indian foods and snacks and that kind of a thing Biryani, Gulab, all that wonderful stuff we were at the Alishan CVU restaurant and they gave us wonderful service thank you so much Farhana we are going to Kisumu right? on 7th of November at the heart spams and memories restaurant which is located just off Rari beach in Syria and we are going to experience the proper Lua culture Lua cuisine when you tell people Lua culture, they only think of fish but they don't know what kind of fish we have we are going to show them things like Athola things like Alia, Kwan all these different things that are popular with Lua cuisine and it's so much more you know, the vegetables I can also go I can take all of that and we are also going to experience other parts of the Lua culture the dancing and a lot of wonderful things so it's about the food and it's about the culture so we are hitting two or three bugs on stone food, culture and empowerment of the youth alright, while we have been doing this bringing people together and trying to appreciate other people's culture we are at a time in our country actually we are now nearing 2022 and communities appreciating each other sometimes it seems to be hard for us what are some of the challenges that you have been facing for the few times you have interacted with other communities? I think this is the issue of perception which is very important in our group we were trying to plan before we went to Mombasa we asked people after Mombasa where do we go next we had options and somebody asked in the group Kituwi tu nada kukula bumbi and it became a problem so eventually we decided to go to Kisumu then Kituwi and Kituwi are going to have the Kamba cultural cuisine and most people have no idea that the Kamba have very wonderful foods you talk of Tokoi, you talk of Nzu you talk of Asali, all these wonderful things that many people have no idea about and it's all about perception and knowledge these food meetups that we are doing outside of Nairobi is a wonderful opportunity for people to learn about the culture of the country through food travel, go to Kituwi, see what the Kamba people eat after that we will take you to Nakuru which is very cosmopolitan perhaps we will go to Northeastern visit Garisa, Isyolo I am sure you have never eaten camel meat or something like that I am forgetting this food I am familiar with many people are from Isyolo this is our culture and there is a lot to experience in terms of tourism and I would like to encourage the tourism stakeholders to come on board with this thing because you will always find a market for people who are ready to eat once you give them a good product and a good service you will be able to encourage domestic tourism and this in turn is going to empower our youth we see youth have been given wheelbarrows to pay Masahani P.S.C.C. Navejiko our young people in the group who are caterers and they do baking and this kind of thing we are going to support their business the people who sell fresh juice in our group fruits that sort of business vegetables, they supply fresh vegetables because Covid has come with new economic realities and everybody has been able to secure their job during this period so a lot of people have been forced to go back to agriculture and food entrepreneurship so that is something that we are passionate about and will continue to support to make sure that our youth are able to sustain themselves other than the online platform that you have been so much using and what I have done giving you the air and what other ways have you been using of bringing people together through food entrepreneurship we are available online we have platforms on Instagram and on Twitter both our handles are at 254Foodies that's for Twitter and Instagram and we are hoping that this message is going to be able to go out long time so that people can be able to understand what it is that we are hoping to achieve in the Kisumu Meetups we are also hoping to engage with the local radio stations just to reach out to the community in those areas so that they can be able to come and highlight their culture through cuisine I want you to respond to this question for being as a summary in terms of why should I join Foodies Join Foodies Kenya so that you can be able to experience a network of people who appreciate fine dining it will improve your knowledge food etiquette and you will also be able to enjoy discounts on food products and services in the very near future Foodies Kenya members will be having discounted restaurants which are affiliated to us so it's a wonderful opportunity you will also get a market of people who are always ready to try out your products and services so if you sell kitchen appliances you sell those kind of things vegetables we are going to give you a ready market as long as you have good products and services Foodies Kenya is your home our question is coming in I want to be part of you you are going to Mombasa how do I come or the Mombasa trip was a bit it was actually a trial and error because it was our first activity since covid struck and we were very grateful we had an attendance of almost 50 people and we're going to Kisumu this time it's a bit more organized we've partnered with a group in Kisumu called Tambia Kisumu because we really want to emphasize on the aspect of cultural appreciation so we have organized the transport we have organized accommodation apart from the foodie event which is going to happen on the Saturday of 7th there's going to be a bit more of an itinerary so we're going to go around Kisumu appreciate their culture visit the different places and then have the foodies event so anybody who is interested you can reach out to us at 254Foodies is our handle or you can reach out to me and we'll be able to do something together thank you so much Astanli for coming and trying to tell us we may have not known until you came here not everyone is on social media I always say this because I'm on Facebook because I want to scroll so after I came here I want to share my story thank you for what you're doing for young people and if you have a small business let me say small business you can join such a group and you'll benefit from them and you'll have a customer you know, come on, other Jews we welcome you Kisumu, Kisumu we're supporting the local business through eating you see tumbo muemo thank you so much and back home thank you so much for being part of us we appreciate your company and the family of Kimani Karanja thank you so much for watching my name is Deliver Hillary and till again I see you on Monday have yourself a very good night actually tomorrow see you tomorrow same time same place good night