Why we’re building Dumaan

“Mum, what’s for dinner?”

When you work, have children or simply have busy days, that question comes around quickly. You may want to eat the dishes you grew up with without having several hours to prepare them.

My mother has always found ways to save time: preparing things ahead, freezing them and getting the longest steps out of the way.

That’s the thinking behind Dumaan.

What can we prepare in advance to make the meal easier, while keeping the flavours and the pleasure of cooking?

At first, we thought about restaurants and caterers, because some preparations take up a lot of their time.

As we explored the idea, though, we became more interested in everyday family life. Coming home from work, deciding what to eat and starting every preparation from scratch: that’s the problem we want to tackle first.

We’re starting by exploring the needs of families who want to cook West African food more easily.

Ready-to-cook pastels, chopped vegetables and pre-prepared dish bases are some of the options. The exact products, formats and prices still need to be refined through the first tests.

For pastels, you have to make the dough, prepare the filling and shape each piece. Having those steps already done makes a tangible difference to the time needed to prepare a meal.

We’re looking for preparations that save enough time to become part of people’s regular routines.

We’ll also test some preparations with restaurants and caterers to compare their needs and uses.

To begin with, we’ll look at what families buy, how they use it and what they buy again. That will tell us where Dumaan really makes everyday life easier.