Podcast: Sankara Brings The Foods Of World To Maritime Doorsteps
Five years ago, Chinweotito (Otito) Atansi and Lily Lynch started an African food stall in Saint John at the Queen Square Farmers Market, surrounded by other vendors selling food from around the world.
Otito, whose parents are entrepreneurs themselves, was born in Nigeria and moved with his family moved to Cameroon when he was six.
The entrepreneurial spirit in his blood, he and Lily took the next step and soon after launched Sankara, an online food and craft marketplace serving Saint John, Fredericton, Moncton and Halifax.
Their experience at the Saint John market inspired them to create an e-commerce and marketing platform to help those vendors grow their businesses and share their food and culture more widely.
“Those vendors don’t want to just be there on Sunday,” Otito tells host Mark Leger on this week’s Huddle “Home Office” podcast.
“They actually want to grow their business. They want to go past just Sundays. They want to be there [for customers] all the days of the week. If you look around, there’s no one place catering to those types of people. Skip the Dishes is for restaurants. We’re trying offer a tool for those types of people that are left behind, whether they’re immigrants or local people who want to expose their food to their community. You don’t have to be an immigrant to part of Sankara.”
Listen to Mark’s conversation with Otito and Lily in the player above, or on your preferred podcast platform.