…by Adeleke Olubanwo

For many food vendors and push-cart operators, the daily routine begins and ends with selling enough products to make a profit. But at a recent business engagement in Lagos, Nestlé Professional challenged operators to think beyond daily sales and begin treating their activities as businesses with systems, records and growth plans.

The call formed part of a training and engagement session organised under Nestlé Nigeria’s MyBusiness initiative, which brought together distributors, kitchen operators and push-cart attendants from Lagos and other states.

Held on Thursday at Darlington Hall, off Town Planning Way, Ilupeju, the session focused on a practical question: how can small-scale operators move from simply trading products to building sustainable micro-businesses?

Rather than positioning the gathering as a conventional classroom training, organisers encouraged participants to share experiences, identify challenges within their operations and learn from one another.

Speaking at the event, Ibrahim, MPN Channel Manager, Nestlé Nigeria, said the interaction was designed to create room for participants to exchange ideas and practical solutions.

He stressed that valuable knowledge was not necessarily tied to years of experience, urging operators to remain open to lessons from colleagues and others within the business.

For the attendants who deal directly with consumers, he said, the relationship goes beyond selling a product.

Trust, he noted, plays a major role in determining whether customers return, making an attendant’s conduct, appearance and manner of interaction important components of business success.

“Customers come back to people they trust,” he said, stressing the position of attendants as a critical connection between Nestlé brands and consumers.

The emphasis on professionalism was also reflected in the contribution of Sule Abolore Alade, Head, Investment Promotion and Strategy, Lagos State Ministry of Commerce, Cooperatives, Trade and Investment.

Alade said the theme, From Pushing Carts to Building a Business, reflected the potential of informal operators to develop viable enterprises if they adopted more disciplined business practices.

He urged participants to pay greater attention to planning, stock management and customer service, noting that the size of a business should not prevent its owner from applying basic principles of effective management.

One of the recurring messages at the session was that what is not recorded is difficult to manage.

Operators were advised to maintain regular stock records and document the movement of products from their stores to points of sale. Such records, speakers said, could help operators track inventory, identify losses and better understand the performance of their businesses.

But beyond the figures, the training exposed several everyday practices that could undermine both profitability and consumer confidence.

These included poor kitchen hygiene, inadequate storage, abandoned carts, purchases from unauthorised sources and the use of competitors’ products on Nestlé-branded equipment.

Operators were cautioned against placing flasks directly on bare floors, using unclean water and keeping products in disorganised storage spaces.

The warnings were not merely theoretical. Participants were informed that another quality assurance audit would be conducted within two months, putting the lessons from the session to a practical test.

The organisers also urged operators to respond quickly when attendants leave their jobs instead of allowing carts to remain unused. Professional appearance and proper customer engagement were similarly presented as simple but important measures for improving consumer confidence and, ultimately, sales.

The bigger message from the engagement was clear: the push cart may be small, but the business behind it does not have to remain small.

Through its Out-of-Home business and MyBusiness platform, Nestlé Professional said it would continue working with distributors, operators and attendants to strengthen business practices, improve standards and support livelihoods across its value chain.

For participants, the challenge now is to take the lessons beyond the training room turning stock books into management tools, customer relationships into loyalty and everyday vending operations into businesses capable of surviving and growing.

Do You Need More Trending Updates? Then kindly bookmark our blog Realgosipcenter.com.ng, we will update you with more latest musics in mp3 audio format and video in mp4 formats as soon as they drop for quick downloads.