For those who grate coconut by hand for a living, it must be a labour of love.
KOFI Lambert, popularly known as ‘Coconut Man’, the owner of 5K’S Fresh Grated Coconut, is one of five brothers who saw the need to creatively think of alternatives to upgrade from the traditional method of hand grating coconuts.
The five brothers Kwame, Kofi, Kayode, Kodzo and Kobla, started their journey in 2009. They originally earned a daily bread by hand grating coconut.
Over a period of time, this became a very hard task to follow through. Six years later, the idea sparked of building a machine that grates coconut for persons in less than six minutes.
Lambert and his brothers first embarked upon this journey in 2016. They drew up plans and even though the odds were against them, they still pulled through. He related to this newspaper the challenges that he faced throughout the journey.
“It took a while to build this machine and it was very difficult because a special wood was needed to support the machine and could only be found down in the jungle,” he said.
The machine is primarily made up of wood, bolts and nuts, a tin grater, a pump and a meter. An estimated sum of $300,000 was invested in this project.
How it works
The customer usually buys the coconut and then it is broken and placed on the top of the machine where the grater rotates at an adequate speed. The grated coconut drops into a bowl located at the bottom of the machine and is then packaged.
This creative invention has since developed into a living business network; persons no longer have to worry about sitting down long hours to grate coconuts.
Expounding on some of his goals for his business, the vendor revealed that he intends to capitalize on the local market by getting his grated coconuts into the big local supermarkets. In addition, he intends to give his customers the option of frozen or chilled grated coconuts.
The Festival City resident noted that this opportunity has given him the chance to venture into the field of entrepreneurship and bring his business from ‘nothing to something’.
“SUCCESS is not a DESTINATION, it’s a continuous JOURNEY that never ends” he noted.
