Kwame “Bishop” Akonnor : serving a message of youth and good food
When Kwame “Bishop” Annor Amfo Akonnor was a teenager, he told himself that he would start a business before he graduated from university. Inspired by two older brothers who had started their own businesses in university, he was eager to follow in their entrepreneurial footsteps. When it came time to deciding the focus of his business, he was certain it was going to be the love of his life; food.
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He was the odd 12-year-old boy spending more time in his mother’s kitchen than his peers. Kwame’s mother noticed his culinary interests, and instantly became his biggest motivator and number one fan.
When he first expressed interest in opening his own restaurant, she suggested that he start a breakfast shop, something she had seen in Amsterdam. He loved the idea, but could not finance it then. So he found a simpler way to people’s hearts: nomadic style pop-up dining sessions.
Bishville
Kwame’s cooking is motivated by his love for family and a yearning to give people nice home-made meals and that’s what birthed the name of his business; Biishville. (Bishop’s house)
It was a lighter way to enter, but something that had taken careful planning. From the moment in his second year at the Pentecost University where his teenage pledge to start a business hit him, it took a full year to finish a business plan, making sure to get everything to the tiniest detail.
“I was not procrastinating; I wanted to get the specifics of what I really wanted down,” he explains. When his patrons sink into his spicy potatoes in beef sauce or get lost in his chef’s special jollof rice, they are thankful for those specifics he got down.
All the planning, culminated in a dogged resolve to recreate something that his family of six took for granted, growing up in Koforidua. “We didn’t eat out a lot back then. It was always home-made food but now because everyone is so busy, no one has time anymore. Families do not even sit together to eat. So I felt I could make food for families, bring them together and cook good home-made food,” he says.
Support from family and friends
Less than a year out on that mission, he hasn’t done badly for himself, and the families of loyal clientele he’s built in the short while. They’ve loved his food enough, to have passed the news of his good food on to others, to make sure that even without a marketing budget, Bishville’s sessions remain full. That’s also how the many that book him regularly to provide private catering for them also came to love him.
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In addition, Bishop uses social media actively for his marketing communications. His posts are shared, liked and retweeted by an eager crowd of friends, family, clients and food enthusiasts. Social media has been a very helpful tool for the 21-year-old, an admittedly intuitive choice for a person his age.
He has also been fortunate to have some of his friends help him out. His brand identity was designed by a friend, for free, and some of his friends help out in the kitchen sometimes, also for free. As an individual combining schooling and the running of a catering business, the help has come in very handy: there’s only so much your pocket money and modest savings can do for you.
This resourcefulness speaks of his resolve, and it’s something he owes to his strong network built from his brief stint with modeling, acting and photography. Being his first business venture, Bishop plans to make it count. Everything he has learnt about running a business from helping his two entrepreneur brothers, has paid off. He keeps his books diligently - the same way he keeps his knives and plates - and is working towards breaking even.
In Chef Selassie Atadika of Midunu, he’s found somebody to look up to. He’s inspired by her spin on local recipes and dishes that he’s often up at night putting together his own.
Bishop believes strongly that young people have a lot of potential and is not deterred by his youth. He advises against waiting for an opportune time to start a business or starting one with debt.
He would like to see the youth put their talents and interests to good use and make the best out of themselves just as he has with his love for food.
The focus now is on small events, just enough that he can handle. The vision is for a bigger hospitality company, employing more and being able to serve a lot more. But he is currently at a good place, doing his best for small crowds.
“For now, I do not have the manpower or equipment to host really large events but honestly, I feel that cooking for a large number reduces the quality of the food. Keeping it small makes the food better,” he believes.
“….I feels that cooking for a large number reduces the quality of the food. Keeping it small makes the food better.”