Document Actions
Carla Fjeld
Ola Verde
Ola Verde produces high quality, nutritional foods at a restaurant in Managua and as a prepared health food brand in Nicaragua. Ola Verde intends to help Nicaraguan consumers eat healthier and encourage Nicaraguan farmers to produce organically.
Consulting Focus: Ola Verde needed help creating an expansion strategy that might include the opening of additional health food restaurants across the country and the introduction of a line of prepared health foods to be sold in supermarkets and specialty shops. Agora helped Carla determine the best strategy for growth, analyzing different options for expansion, strengthening administrative and management capacity, and creating financial projections to guide the process.
"As a nutritionist with an ecological perspective, I am committed to "regional and seasonal" produce for ecological as well as health reasons, and Nicaragua has potential for a real variety of agricultural products. However, as in many developing countries, many Nicaraguans place a higher value on what is imported than on what they grow and process nationally. Thus, I created a business to satisfy and expand the market for deliciously healthy foods that expose people to tastes from around the world but which are created from Nicaraguan ingredients."
"These educational efforts complement our business and create more of a positive image for the healthy food products"
"It gives me great joy to have established a... healthy food business in Nicaragua. However, the reality of working in this country means that sometimes even small achievements are challenging...Agora provides us with stimulation and vision to grow way beyond our comfort with our small achievements, to see how our strategies and practices can be improved to jump the hurdles and continue to grow."
"In addition to the [education provided by the] restaurant, which is part of our business and gives people the opportunity to try new foods, our main means of education are through point-of-purchase nutrition and food information, a weekly newspaper column, programs on television, and talks to school students. These educational efforts complement our business and create more of a positive image for the healthy food products of Nicaragua, whether or not they are ones that we sell." - Carla Fjeld