In 2022, Adeline Pelage and her husband decided to change their small biscuit factory’s primary ingredient from wheat flour to locally sourced sweet potato flour. This transition has proven successful for their business.
The Bobo Biscuit Factory in Douala, Cameroon, is a six-story building with an elevator for easy access to the rooftop. Inside, a 30-square-meter workshop with large windows provides ample natural light, offering a stunning view of Douala Port where ships load and unload cargo. Workers in the workshop are busy making dough, cleaning utensils, and preparing ingredients.
Adjacent to the workshop is the head office, where they handle deliveries and orders. Cardboard boxes filled with various biscuits and pastries wait to be dispatched to the brand’s retail clients, which now number in the hundreds.
The decision to switch from wheat flour to sweet potato flour came after a surge in demand from customers on social media. Adeline Pelage, the founder, explained, “As our client base grew, they expressed a desire for biscuits made from local raw materials.”
This initiative recently earned Adeline Pelage the first prize in the Pierre Castel Award, recognizing innovative projects in nutrition and agriculture in Africa.
Adeline Pelage, originally from Cameroon, studied at a business school in Paris, where her passion for baking turned into a livelihood. Upon completing her business degree, she pursued professional baking training.
When she launched her bakery in Cameroon in 2019, wheat flour was readily available. However, global food security concerns emerged due to the disruption of grain supply caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, leading to soaring wheat prices.
“The brand’s community on social media loudly voiced their demand for biscuits made primarily from local products. That transformation was driven by customer feedback,” Pelage noted.
However, switching to locally available sweet potato flour presented its own set of challenges. “It took us a year to start producing biscuits with sweet potato flour,” Pelage stated.
Most sweet potato farmers in Cameroon are smallholders in remote areas with limited resources, funding, and poor infrastructure. Adeline Pelage invested significant time in researching and establishing partnerships with suppliers to ensure a reliable supply of raw materials. Bobo Biscuits now sources its sweet potato flour from producers located approximately 500 km from Douala in the eastern regions of Cameroon.
“Sweet potatoes aren’t readily available on every market or shop shelf in town. One must venture into rural areas and small towns to meet with producers and dealers,” she explained.
Local farming cooperatives collect sweet potatoes from producers, which are then dried and ground into flour by local processors. The flour is subsequently distributed to urban centers across Cameroon.
While the use of sweet potato flour for baking is not new in Cameroon, one of the most beloved Cameroonian products is Kumba bread, primarily made from sweet potato flour. This bread originated in the town of Kumba in South West Cameroon and is now distributed throughout the country, becoming a staple in the local cuisine.
“We grew up with this bread. Every time my father traveled to the South West region, he knew that what my siblings and I expected from him was our share of Kumba bread,” shared Ako Ambe, a resident of Douala.
In 2022, Cameroon imported 922,000 tonnes of wheat, which put pressure on the nation’s foreign currency reserves and raised concerns about supply chain disruptions.
The call for locally sourced flour on social media reflects local preferences and a growing sense of nationalism, aiming to reduce reliance on foreign imports. However, Adeline Pelage believes that additional efforts and investments are needed to enable mass production and distribution of local tubers and grains, ultimately achieving full import substitution.
For now, individual initiatives like the one at Bobo Biscuits are contributing to this shift in Cameroon’s baking industry.
