Sunday, August 1, 2010

The Ice Man of Africa

Several years ago Denis had an idea: Ice. The orphaned boy, then in his very late teens, was able to get access to a freezer in the town of Lira and started selling the stuff to fisherman. They put it in coolers so they could bring their catch back to town to sell it at the market and at restaurants.

Denis tells me through his gapped tooth smile that he had earned enough money to expand his business to rent the public water kiosk two years ago. He now also charges 100 shilling, or about 5 cents, for 20 liters of water. However, his big business is still ice. At 1,000 shilling for roughly a two-liter block, he does well, though far better in the dry season when the need for ice triples his business. His biggest constraints are the size of his freezer and time, as it takes about a day for the blocks to freeze. And, of course, the constant loss of power, which melts his profits.

Denis did well enough that people far wealthier have begun encroaching on his business, lowering the market price of ice. But he still does well selling the blocks as demand in town for ice has expanded. The sustained business has allowed Denis to put his three younger siblings through school. He had previously moved his brothers and sisters down to the city from his small village for a “a better life than I had.” Since the rebels killed his parents, adulthood came early to Denis. Fortunately, so did his entrepreneurial skills.

At the kiosk, he also grinds up peanuts, or g-nuts, into peanut butter for roughly a 20% mark up, less electricity costs, which he laments for eating into his margins. The grinder chews up electricity, and spits up peanut chunks, making his kiosk door and adjacent wall look like the back of a 4-wd that spent the day off-roading.

He has tried to expand beyond his kiosk and bought a bike which he rented out to a motorcycle taxi driver. But he found the driver unreliable, he liked to drink a bit too much and work a bit too little, so the bike sat idle just beyond his kiosk.

The Ice Man of Africa? Maybe that's a bit rich. After all his margins are too small to hire an employee (although he pays someone to trim the overgrown grass around his kiosk). But at 23, the Ice Man of Lira is sure a hard worker. And his skills are helping provide sustainable clean water and fresh fish to Lira.

1 comment:

  1. Wow, fascinating! The barriers to good business by people trying to do simple, profitable work are devastating. Eli

    ReplyDelete