Pioneer of food tourism explains policy barriers

Dar es Salaam. A local cuisine has huge potential to attract tourists, and Mr Sunday Ndunguru, a Tanzanian entrepreneur, argues that there are opportunities in the seemingly lucrative food tourism business that is yet to gain prominence in the country.

Food tourism remains a relatively undiscovered business potential, with Mr Ndunguru, a pioneering investor in this area, struggling to formalise his digital business and be licensed observed. His business, marketed as Jiranileo, is a platform where he organises private and group meals eaten with local hosts from across Africa.

“We help people to get to know their neighbours and experience the warm hospitality across the continent.”

“We invite you to our table,” he says, explaining how his business works, but he insists that this is not a restaurant. “It’s just a website that connects people of different cultures to learn together.”

Mr Ndunguru says he registered the food tourism business platform last year (February 2020), operating as Kambirana Group (T) Ltd, where he works as chief operations officer and regional manager for East Africa. But since then, he says, he has been searching for a licence to operate in the country where his kind of business hasn’t officially existed.

In Tanzania, e-commerce is yet to take deep roots due to lack of a digital policy, and other gaps, leaving online shoppers and traders in limbo.

Food tourism, also known as culinary tourism, focusses on food as an attraction for exploration and a destination for tourists, which includes a variety of formats and products –cooking classes, restaurants, farm weekends, cookbooks, food guides, and new or adapted recipes and dishes.

“I’m not aware [of the business], let them bring the issue to my attention,” says Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism permanent secretary Allan Kijazi asking anyone with such business initiatives to present them to the authorities “for consideration.”

Mr Ndunguru (in his late 30s) is a well-travelled man, who has been to many parts of Africa and beyond [sic]. He tells The Citizen that he has experienced a wide range of tourist attractions, such as the culinary tourism in Zambia where “street food as well as cultural tourism are growing fast.”

“Today’s tourist is better informed, more cultured, well-travelled and looking for new experiences,” he says, explaining that food also offers a gateway into understanding other cultures, through taste, food preparation and everything about eating. “Food and drinks also create lasting memories that can shape one’s travel experience.”

He says he is working to give the world a taste of African hospitality, and in doing so, he came up with a product known as Jiranileo which basically aims to create a new narrative about modern African life.

“Jiranileo is a way to connect people around the table to meet, listen, learn, and share their stories and give a taste of today’s Africa to your neighbour, your friends, and to the world,” he says.

Mr Ndunguru says through the business of home-cooked meals across Africa they find the best hosts, in neighborhoods you might not know, who cook the foods you won’t find in restaurants and offer you a seat at their table to eat together.

He said one of the conditions required to be in business is to have a licence for his operations which he notes he could not get “because the government did not have his kind of business in its portfolio and therefore could not issue a licence.”

“I was very discouraged when I learnt this, especially as I have been growing slowly in the past two years, and invested time and money into the business, what if one day the government decides it cannot accommodate my line of business, what happens to the investment,” he said.

He noted that there was a need for awareness from both the public as well as the government to be able to promote it.

On the issue of taxation, he said his business was not a restaurant nor a catering company and in the past two years he had been investing with little profit and therefore hoped he would be taxed according to what he produces.