We were lucky to catch up with Wichita Mensah recently and have shared our conversation below.

Wichita, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

My company’s name comes from my West African background. Noudoudou literally means “Food” in both my Maternal and Paternal patois.

My mom is from Benin and my Dad is from Togo, I wanted my company’s name to be a reflexion of both cultures and fortunately the same word stands for food.

I also wanted people from those countries to relate easily to the name, and for those who do not know the meaning I wanted something very simple.

Whenever someone asks me what “noudoudou” means, I can easily say: “it means food”.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My journey started timidly while I was still living in France. At that time, I would spent my entire weekend cooking and baking in the square kitchen of my apartment on Rue Saint Rome in Toulouse. There is an Indian restaurant called: La Rajasthani across the street from my apartment, I would spend hours trying to figure out what spices they use…..

The journey really started as a hobby three years ago when I moved to Atlanta. At that time, I was sharing pictures of my daily cooking and baking. Few months later, What has started as a hobby magically became a side hustle…

It has been a smooth road. My intention was only to share recipes and do food photography. I did not feel like I was working at all. I often caught myself cooking until midnight or waking up at 4:00 AM to make my “ganache au chocolat” or baking my brioche (without even realizing it).

The entrepreneurial side came afterwards and even when I started taking orders and selling food and cakes, I have never came across any hardship, at least not yet.

My business specializes in West African food and French Patisserie.

I am known for cooking as an “African mom”. Almost all my customers always thought I was a mature stay at home mom until they meet me personally and they are surprised as they never imagined a young lady could cook such delicious dishes.

One of them once told me: “Your food reminds me of my childhood…”.

I take pride in choosing the best ingredients, cooking with love like I would for my family and presenting the food the best looking way as possible. For me, eating is mental and visual before even touching the tongue…

I would like the readers to know I offer catering services, finger food as well as French patisserie.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Building up my social media was at first challenging because I was unaware of how to proceed.

I did a little bit of digging, asking other food bloggers, watching youtube videos.

The process is pretty straightforward:

-Sharing pictures: posting pictures regularly as well as posting stories.

– Being consistent: It does not necessarily means posting everyday but instead having as et schedule and stick to it. I was posting everyday when I freshly started because I had the time to do so. However, for those who want to start and who cannot afford to post everyday, you can do so everyday 2 days or so.

-Engage with your audience: do not hesitate to do polls or to allow your followers to ask you questions. Also, please be kind and respond to comments.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Cooking with quality and fresh products have definitely helped me build my reputation. All my dishes were made to order, I dod not sell frozen foods.

For example, if I want to cook fish, I buy the fish the same day and cook it the same day, same for vegetables.

I think my customers can feel or taste the freshness in every bite.

Also, patience, I am a home-based caterer and most of the time my customers have to come to me to pick up their food and sometimes they can arrive late. I never get upset when someone is late. I am aware that Atlanta is a big city and Traffic might get crazy sometimes.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/nou_dou_dou?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/noudoudouu?mibextid=ZbWKwL

Image Credits
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