About
A palm oil business run by someone who grew up with it.
C.Y. Foods was started by Chinaza Onyekwere, who comes from South East Nigeria — where palm oil is not a commodity you trade but something you grow up judging by eye and by smell.
That matters more than it sounds. The hardest part of this business is not selling the oil; it is knowing, standing in a mill yard, whether what is in front of you is worth buying. It is also knowing the people at the mills well enough that they do not try it on.
So the model is deliberately short. We buy direct from two mills we have worked with for years — one in Calabar, one in Bayelsa — check each batch ourselves, repack it in Lagos, and deliver it. There is no chain of middlemen between the fruit and your kitchen, which is exactly why the oil arrives the way it left.
Quality control
Four tests, before the money moves.
Every batch is graded on four things at the point of purchase. A batch that fails any one of them is rejected rather than blended away.
- Colour
- A true unadulterated red. Oil that has been thinned runs pale; oil that has been dyed runs wrong.
- Smell
- The aroma of fresh palm oil is unmistakable, and so is the sourness of oil that has sat too long.
- Taste
- Tasted at the mill, before money changes hands.
- Water
- Water content is the commonest way volume gets padded. We check for it every time.
What we are still working on.
Our NAFDAC registration is in progress, not finished. Until it is granted we sell as a distributor rather than a registered packaged-goods brand, and we would rather say so here than let you find out later.
We also do not yet hold a warehouse. Stock moves quickly from mill to buyer, which keeps the oil fresh but means large orders are worth telling us about a few days ahead.
The team
-
Chinaza Onyekwere
Founder & Chief Executive
-
Barnabas Oji
Head of Operations
Sales agents cover Ajah and Yaba, and most new customers still arrive because an existing one sent them.