Meet Mercy Kitomari
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Mercy Kitomari (Nelwa's Gelato)[/caption]
Being the first event in Dar es Salaam, a lot of the attendees walked in uncertain of what they had signed up for. Most of them were surprised to find the speaker already at the event, interacting and connecting with those who had arrived early, embodying the spirit of what Startup Grind is about and setting the stage for a great event. "Well, at least the speaker is here," they must have thought. The only daughter in her family, Mercy Kitomari is a liberal who believes in fairness and justice for all. She was named "Nenelwa" at birth which means "umesamehewa" in Kiswahili and "you are forgiven" in English. After moving to Lesotho, her mother named her "Mercy", the closest English equivalent to her tribal name. The naming of Nelwa's Gelato is a tribute to both her tribal culture and the great ice cream making traditions of Italy. Mercy has always been an entrepreneur. She recalls never being too comfortable with the idea of being employed. Once during her studies in UK, she tried being a cleaner at a hotel but ended up giving up that idea half way through the audition. Before long she found herself selling ink refills on eBay and trading in various resale products. At another occasion, when asked what she'd like to be doing in 5 years by a career consultant before leaving the UK, her answer was simply: "I want to have my own ice cream business!" He then tore up her CV and told her that she knew what she needed to do, she just needed to start doing it, consultation advice that had cost her quite a bit of money. Finally, whilst working for a bank when she came back from her pursuing her Masters, and even though some people thought it beneath her, Mercy delivered food products to fellow workers at the office to save them the hustle of going to the market - for a fee of course!
The Start of An Ice Cream Empire
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Nelwa's Gelato Ice Cream Factory...[/caption]
One day, after she had spent a while giving away all the ice cream she used to make for free just to inquire on how good the quality was, someone offered to pay for it. "Uuumm... Five thousand?" is the not quite sure answer she came up with off the top of her head, when asked how much it was. Nevertheless, this got her thinking about what exactly it would cost to make and deliver her really good ice cream to various potential markets. Nelwa's Gelato was born. Leveraging existing networks, social media and her infectious charm, Mercy launched an ice cream and chocolate company that kept her up 8 hours at night on weekdays making ice cream, and always on the road on weekends delivering the ice cream, all the while keeping her day job. She decided she would go fully self-employed after two years, and worked really hard to ensure that goal is attained. True to herself, and despite numerous criticisms about leaving a well paying job for the risky and highly competitive ice cream industry, two years after launching her company Mercy attained her dream of being her own boss. Her first big break happened when she walked into Southern Sun Hotel with a small can of ice cream and asked the hotel chef to taste it. "Nice," the chef said. "Can we get ten litres a week?" "Yes, of course," Mercy replied, knowing that her production capacity wasn't nearly enough to cater to that order. Lucky for her, the hotel system had quite a bit of process before an order was approved and that gave her a month to scale her production activities. She rented a larger ice cream making machine, refined her business model and one month later Southern Sun hotel guests were being treated to desserts consisting of Nelwa's Gelato's finest. Mercy has since built her company into Tanzania's finest maker of organic ice cream. All her ingredients are sourced locally from local fruit and vegetable farmers within Tanzania. So much that when recognising the top 1000 Tanzanians causing positive economic change, she was classified under the agricultural sector!
Still the Humble Beginning
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Nelwa's Gelato - Organic Ice Cream Treats[/caption]
Despite all she has achieved so far, Mercy Kitomari maintains that she hasn't yet started achieving what she set out to do. Her dream is a lot larger than anything she has done so far. She wants to build a global organic ice cream brand. When you walk into an ice cream place anywhere in Africa you should be able to ask for Nelwa's Gelato, because that's exactly the taste and feeling you had been craving and it was so compelling that it brought you there. For her, there is no limit to where she could take her brand. The reason Nelwa's Gelato has become quite the ice cream sensation in such a short period and without paying for advertising or publicity is because, she has found that people don't just buy into her products or brand, but rather they buy into her personality and how she makes them feel. After meeting Mercy, it quickly becomes quite obvious why Nelwa's Gelato makes the best ice cream in the country. Positivity, hopefulness, consideration, care freeness, sweetness, charm, genuineness, generosity and lots of fun; that is what you buy into when you buy one of Mercy Kitomari's products. You can literally taste it in her ice cream. And we know this for sure because she so generously brought some with her for the event!
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