Mr. Mahmud Johnson, the founder and Chief Executive of J-Palm Liberia – an oil processing business he founded in 2013 – is one of the fastest rising entrepreneurs of Liberia; his Kernel Fresh has become the biggest brand in the cosmetics industry in Liberia. We, from Emergi, sat down with him to hear about his successes and challenges. In this interview, Mr. Johnson discusses his business, some lessons he has learned over the years, and the adverse impact of the lack of stable electricity on the manufacturing industry in Liberia. These are the highlights of the interview with the brains behind Kernel Fresh.

The second part of this interview will be published on 23 October 2020.

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‍What is it like be an entrepreneur in Liberia?

It’s been a beautiful journey I would say. The thing about it is; as an entrepreneur you have an idea in your mind of this venture that you want to bring into the world. You have to take all these steps to turn that into reality and most of the time you don’t even know if it’s going to be possible. But you set out to do it anyway. And when it finally begins to become a reality, it’s quite a humbling and amazing feeling. It’s not easy; it’s extremely challenging doing business in Liberia, and when I look at all that we have been able to accomplish despite all of these challenges, it really does make me happy. 

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In a way I think about entrepreneurship in artistic terms. Like a painter would just have a picture in his head, but has to start stroke by stroke to bring it to life; or a musician would have just a sound or a string, and would work his or her magic to turn that into music. I think it’s the same for business, here you have a certain thought and you want to bring that into reality.

Every day you have to come to work and paint, stroke by stroke, until you have that full picture. But for me it’s never complete because one always has to strive to do better, and sometimes the picture in your head changes or evolves… it’s a constant process.

‍What gave you the idea to transform the traditional Liberian Palm Kernel Oil into the refined oil and other body lotion that you produce today?

To be honest, when I started J-Palm, the idea was never about creating these products. We started up as a Palm Oil business. I remember I was having a conversation with my aunt who used to go to buy oil in the interior and bring it to town to sell to market women. She told me that she had run out of business because it was difficult finding a consistent supplier. So when we started, the idea was to focus on increasing productivity at the farmers’ level so that they could produce more oil that we would bring to town to sell. 

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Eventually, we started doing palm kernel oil because as you produce palm oil, the palm kernels become a byproduct and I was not comfortable with people just burning the palm kernels. We found out that the palm kernel oil was actually in demand at the time… this was in 2014. Our focus became how to increase income for the farmers. So we took the palm kernel oil machine to the village. This meant that instead of people using their hands and spending 8 hours, they used the machine and spent 30 minutes; this enabled them to double production and their income. 

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Our next step in the palm kernel business was to think beyond just selling to soap makers. The dark palm kernel oil is very effective in removing pimples and skin blemishes. We realized that it would be of more value if we further processed it to sell it as a skin care product and so we did. And that’s how the business started growing into the Kernel Fresh business that it is today.

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Now that your business has reached this far, what is it that still drives you to do more?

What drives me is the impact that we can really make. It’s very ridiculous that in this modern 21st century people would spend 8 to 10 hours standing over huge fires just to make about 20 kg of palm oil. And even then, they still cannot afford to send their children to school. 

When you go to some villages you’d see that people are still living in conditions that their forefathers lived in some hundred years ago. Meanwhile, there’s this massive global palm oil industry that has transformed other countries on other continents, and that oil palms all originated here in West Africa, but the farmers here have yet to benefit from it. 

So what’s driving me, is to bring Liberian palm farmers into the mainstream to tell their stories. We have this natural variety of palm trees that grows everywhere in this country, so when you talk about organic palm oil, it doesn’t get more organic than that. We have to create demand for our palm oil because once we do that, the land that all these people are settling on becomes exponentially more valuable and that can literally transform this entire country. 

We have this natural variety of palm trees that grows everywhere in this country, so when you talk about organic palm oil, it doesn’t get more organic than that.

This is my drive. Seeing what Kernel Fresh is right now is amazing, but the real mission is to get to the point where people understand that Liberian palm oil is of a different standard as compared to what you will get in other parts of the world, due to the fact that it grows in the wilds, and its cultivation does not cause environmental destruction, as no one plants these wild palm trees.