August Secrets: How a journey in motherhood led to a nutritious discovery

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Oluwatoyin Onigbanjo

Oluwatoyin Onigbanjo

Oluwatoyin Onigbanjo

AugustSecrets was born out of necessity when Oluwatoyin Onigbanjo had her child, Jaden, outside her country, Nigeria. Upon returning, she bought all available infant meals only for her baby to keep rejecting them. It was a frustrating experience for a first-time mother.

Since she couldn’t watch him starve to death, she began the journey into looking into alternatives, it was in the process of searching she found solace in African and Nigerian foodstuffs.

With the enthusiasm of a mother, she tried locally made, fresh homemade food for her son, and to her delight, he took them and grew healthier. She started sharing her recipes with other mothers and proceeded to launch AugustSecrets in 2016.

A recipe developer, child food blogger and founder of AugustSecrets Nigeria, she started the company to share her discovery with the aim of helping Nigerian mothers, home and abroad, feed their children healthier food options.

Trained as a journalist, her entrepreneurial journey has been one of discovery and evolution. “Immediately the company started, the future was in view, we kept asking, where do we see ourselves? That has been guiding what we do. We aim to be the most innovative company providing nutritious solution options to children in their first one thousand days”, she said.

With that in mind, Toyin knew that both hard work and smart work would have to be their mantra if she wanted to attract the attention of young and new mothers. “I immediately opened a Facebook account because that’s the smart thing to do”, she pointed out. “I wanted more people to know about us, and I wanted to come across as helpful, so I kept sharing recipes on Facebook” she revealed.

Facebook has given the brand the kind of reach she never dreamt of and that has caused AugustSecrets to grow exponentially. “We have people from as far as Russia reaching out to us asking for our products through Facebook. For us, this has been a market without borders” she added.

“The good thing I like about Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp is that it helps us get instant feedback and recommendations, we also get to know the mind of our customers concerning a particular issue” she disclosed. This has helped August Secrets grow as a brand and made them closer to their customers.

Although Toyin revealed that the focus for the brand has been to provide value rather than grow social media following. However, she believes that consistency on the various platforms have played a huge role in staying relevant over the last four years. “We show up on these platforms every day, every sunrise we are all across these platforms trying all its features, taking advantage of the opportunity it brings and using it to bring value” she noted.

From selling to friends and family, AugustSecrets has evolved to that company leading the cause for child nutrition with wholesome solutions and has fed over 30,000 children within and outside the shores of Nigeria through the help of Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and other social media platforms.