The owner of Jikoni Magic, Agnes Kalyonge, had always wanted to own an electric pressure cooker. It had been on her bucket list for a very long time. So, when a stranger by the name of Jon Leary approached her via email to test out a few electric pressure cookers, who was she to refuse? Thus began the journey of Jikoni Magic into the clean cooking sector.
We had no idea what to expect. Our first encounter with cooking with electricity happened to be when Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC), the entity in charge of supplying electricity to the country, was trying to create awareness about cooking with electricity and they invited us to be part of a show that was meant to air on a local television station. Other than that, we had never really encountered clean cooking as we know it now. Jon Leary contacted us on behalf of Modern Energy Cooking Services (MECS) because they had hit a little snag in their journey.
When they initially started their research, they had gone to the extent of printing out cook books when they quickly realized that was the wrong approach when it came to Kenyans. When we heard that they had gone that route we couldn’t help but laugh because we immediately knew why their efforts were not yielding the results they wanted. They then learnt that Kenyans learn their recipes and other cooking information from bloggers online, hence their decision to approach us. We already had a wide reach because of our work on social media. Our YouTube channel has a wide reach and our social media handles have a decent following.
Ever since that time, we have had a very nice working relationship because we understand Kenyan cooking, the kind of flavours which Kenyans are looking to develop in their food and the main concerns Kenyans have when it comes to cooking with electricity. All that knowledge combined meant that we knew how to approach the Kenyan market and create awareness about the gadgets they wanted to introduce. What really encouraged us to collaborate though was their agenda to reduce the exposure of women and children to harmful fumes emitted when they use fuels such as charcoal, firewood and kerosene to cook. This really touched us because we wanted to a part of the revolution, so to speak. After Jon demonstrated to us just how efficient, noiseless and safe the pressure cooker he was using was, we were more than willing to collaborate. That encounter was back in 2019.
Since that time we have worked with MECS on a variety of projects which involve conducting research on their behalf and seeing just how the pressure cookers they are trying to introduce to the market fit in with Kenyans and their lifestyle and cooking habits. Through this collaboration, we have been introduced to a variety of companies which are also working towards the same goal of creating awareness of clean cooking.
We hope to continue on this journey and to gain even more reach outside Nairobi. We hope we can get to the point where every household has the option of clean cooking.
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