Affiong Williams is the CEO of Reelfruit. ReelFruit is an emerging fruit processing company that is currently introducing a new snack into the Nigerian market; healthy and delicious dried fruit to cater to the growing number of health conscious consumers. It recently launched two new products into the market, and in process to set up processing factory for export of dried fruit.
Affiong has a Post graduate diploma in Business Administration from the University of Witwatersrand, and a BSc in Physiology, Psychology from the same university.
In 2012, she left her job as a manager at Endeavor South Africa, a small business incubator, moved back to Nigeria and founded Reelfruit. She started out from a flat in the Surulere area of Lagos, with $8,000 from savings and loans from friends and family.
ReelFruit produces dried fruit snacks such as Pineapple, Mango, Banana, PaPaya (Paw-Paw), Coconut and Fruit & Nut Mix with Cashews for the health-conscious Nigerian, and in 2016 alone, it sold 500,000 packs of snacks.
The products can be found in more than 80 outlets across Nigeria.
In September 2013, ReelFruit was placed first out of 700 applicants for Women in Business Challenge organised by BidNetowrk, Netherlands. The company won the 5000 Euro prize.
Three months later, it won Creative Focus Africa’s SME competition for businesses in Lagos.
She was named in Forbes Africa 2016 list of “30 under 30 African Entrepreneurs” who are the “billionaires of tomorrow who will create jobs and wealth for the continent.”
During an interview with Africa news.com, she said;
“Well, I was actually attracted to the sector for a number of reasons. Firstly, I believe there is untapped opportunity in processing and value addition of raw materials and I also believe it’s a very budding sector, there is a lot of opportunity as well as the job creation which I think is quite important to me as an entrepreneur”
