Mr. Folu Ayeni, Chairman/CEO of Tantalizers, Nigeria’s fastest growing fast food chain, has born several stings from the bees and now savours the delicious honey pot that is the nation’s fast food industry. Seven years ago when they produced the blueprint for their money-spinning business, Folu Ayeni and his wife, Bose Ayeni, knew the odds were high against them.

Raising the start-up capital of N2.5 million seemed a wishful thought. Banks laughed them to scorn.
Today, these same banks spruce up their sweet-talking business executives and send them after Ayeni, offering all kinds of incentives to win him over.

“When we were about to start this business, all we needed was N2.5 million. Banks shut their doors on us. But we held on to the dream,” Ayeni recalled, his face lit by the warmth that comes from a sense of self-fulfilment.

At the beginning, when they took their proposal to their bankers, their bankers told them they did not finance such businesses. They never gave up hope. They persisted until the then Prudent Bank (now Skye Bank) decided to take a chance on their dreams. This paid of handsomely.

Today, Tantalizers has more than 30 outlets nation-wide and are now looking beyondNigeria. We plan to expand to the West Coast, South Africa and the United Kingdom.

The husband and wife team run Tantalizers, which is low listed in the Nigerian Stock market as a public limited liability company. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), and arm of the World Bank in February 2010 granted $7Million in loans and took $1.5Million equity in Tantalizers to help take the company to the next level. This will be used to upgrade about 15 outlets and build more new outlets. From looking for a N2.5million start up capital in 1997, the husband and wife team has grown a company which has become a national brand and institution in Nigeria.

How it all Started

Proposal
“In the beginning, we wrote a proposal to our banks. I don’t want to mention their names, but I am sure they will remember when they read this. They know themselves. We took our proposal to them, but they said they did not finance such businesses. But now, they are chasing us around to say they want to do this and that. If we had not got someone to start us up at the time, how would any one have been after us today? But Mr. Sola Akinfenwa of Prudent Bank is a very nice man. He listened to us, took a risk and here we are today. But I am not surprised because Sola went to the best school. He attended the University of Nigeria, Nsukka; Nigeria’s first university”, he stressed with the joy an ex-student usually expresses when describing his/her alma mater to a buddy.

But the Tantalizers case is not by any means isolated. Dreams die fast in Nigeria where banks understand nothing beyond buying and selling and lack the discipline and patience of long term investments.
Raising the start-up capital was just one side of the Tantalizers challenge. In fact, a more daunting obstacle lay in the physical commencement of the enterprise. Ayeni and his wife soon realized that setting up a business in Nigeria was akin to waving the metaphorical red flag to a bull in a bullfight. The only difference is perhaps that the bull is ironically your supposed protector, not your adversary.
“From day one, you are harassed from every where. Federal, state and local government officials hound you. It’s like me against the world. The ‘area boys’ and different community leaders are after you.

Disincentive
“Let me illustrate with an example. On the day we opened the outlet on Lagos Island, in the evening of the same day, the authorities ‘welcomed’ us with a bill of N614, 000 for signpost charges. How much could we have made between morning and evening of our opening day to pay such bill? That was from state government. We had to deal with up to 16 different councils from federal, state and local governments. And if you build anything on Lagos Island, you have to pay ‘area boys’, even if your generator develops fault and you want to repair it, you must settle them because they claim they are the owners of the land.”
But if he thought that the problem of ‘area boys’ and cut-throat paramount rulers were a Lagos phenomenon, Ayeni was dead wrong. When Tantalizers arrived Port Harcourt, Rivers State, a bigger headache awaited them.

“The day we started to renovate the property we had leased, some people came to seize the implements of workers, insisting that we settle them. It was a helpless situation. We had to take care of community leaders and all that. They also insisted that we sign a memorandum of association with them giving the ruler the right to nominate all the workers we intended to employ in the outlet. And that every year, we would pay a tribute of N500, 000 and a cow to the ruler because they are the owners of the land. All that had to be negotiated and appeasement made. But the demands continued. Some youths from one division would come and say ‘Some of the people you hired are not from our area, so you must take people from our own place’. They would come in a team of about 20 and when they sensed that you would not play ball, they would insist that we pay for their transportation back home. And if you asked them how much, they would tell you N500,000. They talk about money as if you mint it. Perhaps, it is because they have been dealing with oil companies.

“The other day, we were trying to effect repairs on the road to one of the communities in collaboration with one of the commissioners. Then, one of the chiefs of the community insisted that his people be employed to do the job. Two were hired as a result. But the chief came back later to argue that the N100 we paid them was not enough. He again insisted that we hired two more people and that we pay each of them N4,000 a day. His people promptly confiscated the implements for the road repairs to enforce his will. If they could do that to government, you can imagine what they will do to investors. I don’t know what the NDDC is doing, but something has to be done to better the lives of the people of the Niger Delta.”

Understandably, the picture painted is gloomy. Tantalizers is seven years old now. If he has to tell the story so far, how would he put it? “I would say it’s been rough, but we have received God’s favour. We have 30 outlets nation-wide and we are now looking beyond Nigeria. We are looking at South Africa and the United Kingdom. We are doing feasibility studies on those two and other West African countries.

“But we may have to start with the U.K first, because there is a large population of Nigerians there, especially in south-east London. Each time I visit there, they ask for their own outlet of Tantalizers,” he said.
You wondered what else there was to Tantalizers and other fast food chains than the sale of chicken and food. So, why would Nigerians in London ask for the tantalizing treatment?

“There’s a lot more to it”, he assured. “To the average person who visits our outlet, he sees only the food which does not take him five minutes to get. But how does the food get to the point of service? We buy over 150 different raw materials to run the business. It is so complex that we had to set up a separate company to handle the purchase of these raw materials. You have to establish the quality of raw materials purchased and move them to different locations for storage. But there’s even a greater challenge in training the workers who work at our various outlets. We have to train them properly to ensure that a chicken prepared on Lagos Island tastes the same with the one prepared on Allen Avenue. All these require a lot of work and paying attention to details. If you don’t know what you are doing, you are bound to make costly mistakes.”

Competition
Many people might not know it, but Nigeria’s fast foods industry is rather a curious one. It’s about the only industry that is insulated from the dynamics of free enterprise. Put differently, there is no cut-throat competition in the fast foods sector, according to Ayeni.

“The operators don’t see themselves as rivals. There is co-operation (not competition) in the industry,” he explained. “What happened was that Mama Kas (the owner of Mama Kas food chain) took it upon herself to bring all the operators together. This woman made great efforts to ensure that all the operators are united. The only exception is Mr. Bigg’s and that is because they are very big and they think they don’t need anybody.

“Of course, we poach each other’s staff, but it is not often deliberate. If somebody walks into my office and says he is from Tastee or Sweet Sensation and he wants a job, I most likely would take up the phone and call them to confirm and ensure that our relationship is not threatened. That is the kind of mutual respect that exists in our industry.

“The potential of the fast food industry is enormous. We estimate the market to be worth N190 billion. At the moment, what the operators tap from this is less than N50 million. So, there is a great deal of potentials there. A lot of people will still join the market. If we get our acts right, the Macdonald’s of this world will come”.

Running Tantalizers
Ayeni runs Tantalizers with his wife. But not many people know that husband and wife have always worked together. They had worked for the same employer and reported to the same boss before.
“We were in the same department. Imagine what it was like working together. At a time, we were reporting to the same boss at Rank Zerox. We were even married then, but at a point, I had to move on. There was one or two occasions that my boss then tongue-lashed me in the presence of my wife. It was most embarrassing.

“The thing about us is that if you give somebody a responsibility, you must give him the chance to deliver. My wife is the M.D in charge of operations and personnel. I respect her opinion. Our combination has worked well”, he affirmed.
Meanwhile, Tantalizers has commenced a promotion that will enrich its customers with instant prizes ranging from TV sets to refrigerators, microwave and other gifts.