From transforming plantains and sweet potatoes into premium snacks to creating new income opportunities for farmers, with E-Chips Devys Convolbo is building a business that puts West African products in the spotlight. An Orange Corners Senegal alum and recipient of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Enterprising Futures scholarship, Devys started his company with just $50 and has since grown it into a business serving more than 12,000 customers annually across Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire. We spoke with Devys during the One Young World Summit, where he shared the story behind E-Chips, the role Orange Corners played in the company’s growth, and his ambition to make locally produced African snacks a household name around the world.
Hi Devys! Could you introduce yourself and E-Chips?
My name is Devys. I’m from Côte d’Ivoire, but I live in Senegal, and I’m the founder of E-Chips. E-Chips produces locally-sourced, natural, high-quality plantain or sweet potato snacks for consumers interested in healthy, authentic African products. At the same time, we add value to raw materials and give farmers the opportunity to increase their incomes.
We target both health-conscious African consumers as well as people living in Europe. We sell online and through partnerships with local retailers. Our snacks are already available in France and the UK, but would also love to export to the Netherlands. We can ship to anywhere really. All we need is someone on the ground to take care of the distribution.
Four years ago I started out with 50 dollars, selling 25 packages in Senegal. Today we’re a team of 8 spread across Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire and sales have gone up to serve over 12,000 customers annually. Every day, we deliver approx. 30 orders in Senegal and 40-45 in Côte d’Ivoire. Consumers can place their orders via our app and receive their delivery within minutes. We sell both B2B and B2C.
What makes E-Chips stand out in the market?
Most of our customers are local, from either Senegal or Côte d’Ivoire. In these markets E-Chips is the first high-quality locally produced chips brand on the market, with branded packaging and all, as opposed to chips packaged on the side of the road in regular plastic bags. And unlike the big Western brands you might be familiar with, we don’t use additives. We keep our chips as natural as possible, we don’t even use flavour additives!
Another thing which makes us different is that we produce all-year-round, so there’s always plantain or sweet potato chips available, regardless of the season. Most businesses here don’t have the infrastructure to produce chips all-year round. In the sweet potato season, they produce sweet potato chips, but then out-of-season production is halted.
Both plantain and sweet potatoes have a pretty short shelf life. If not processed, they go to waste quickly. Senegal produces a lot of sweet potatoes, but we don’t eat all of them. So after plantain we consciously choose to develop a sweet potato line, to save some of it from going to waste. But plantain chips are still the bestseller, people here are simply more familiar with plantain!
What are your plans for the future?
I’m really proud of what we’ve done and how far we’ve come. A lot of people didn’t think it was possible to do this with local products. They imagine plantain and sweet potatoes are just for eating. But what we do with plantain and sweet potatoes we can also do with mangoes, or with other local foods. There’s a huge market out there that we can serve with locally produced chips. If I dream big, I’d like to one day be the Lays of Africa. People from all of the world, Europe, the US, buying African products.
Beyond E-Chips, I’d like to be an example for other young people, help them believe in themselves and show what young entrepreneurs can do. And let them know that that Lays of Africa was established by a team of young people only.
I’d like to be an example for other young people, help them believe in themselves and show what young entrepreneurs can do. And let them know that that Lays of Africa was established young people only!
You’re an alumni of our Orange Corners Senegal training programme. How’s that experience been?
Orange Corners has a great reputation in Senegal, it’s known as a programme of great entrepreneurs. Most of the really impactful startups or SMEs in Senegal have gone through Orange Corners at some point. So it was really a privilege to become part of this network. I’m really proud to be an Orange Corners alum!
I came to Orange Corners with idea to organise E-Chips better. I can’t say yet that everything is perfect now, but I definitely found the way forward with Orange Corners. And our packaging is a direct result of our participation.. we used our OCIF prototype fund to get the machine.
In addition to new friends, I found quite a few customers there as well. I brought my chips to every session, again doing market research. The people in my cohort, they were brutally honest with me. But after each session, I got more orders. 5 bags, 10 bags. And some others living further afield were taking sometimes 20 bags at once.
You were selected for the Dutch MFA’s Enterprising Futures scholarships. How’s your One Young World experience been so far?
To be honest, it’s the best experience of my life! My dream wasn’t necessarily to come to Europe, but I really wanted to meet people from all over the world. To learn about other cultures and countries. For example, I learnt so much about Ethiopia from one of the other Enterprising Futures scholars. I definitely want to visit Ethiopia now. This is the most beautiful gift the Enterprising Futures scholarship gave me, meeting all these young people. Our delegation is like a new family to me. The memories we made together are invaluable. I never imagined that one day I would bring my E-Chips experience to One Young World.
The One Young World sessions have also been super inspiring. Hear young people like ourselves tell their stories was super motivational, but I also found the Chanel CEO very inspiring to listen to, for example. One Young World also gave me the opportunity to do some market research, to see how people from different parts of the world respond to our snacks. The main thing that stood out for me? How the chips appealed to people regardless of their background! I also collected lots of useful feedback, such as suggestions for new flavours. With our ambition to sell all over the world, this really was the right place to test that.
I also would have loved to spend more time in the Netherlands. Not just go into pitching, but learn more about topics like sustainability. I appreciate how the Netherlands isn’t like other countries making a lot of noise about what they do. But the Dutch, even though they don’t like to show it much.. they are helping us a lot. Can you imagine any other government sponsoring young people to go to One Young World? And there’s an actual Ambassador for Youth and he’s here with us. A lot of the scholars already met him in their countries, and they had no idea how important he is.. that’s how the Dutch are, titles are not important to them. They care about what you do and what impact you make. I find this inspiring.. working hard, and not talking too much!
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