Onga Ghana joins Essiama to celebrate festival
The warm, affectionate nature and community-spiritedness of the Onga brand was once again brought into full glare as the brand joined the people of Essiama in the Western region of Ghana to celebrate their annual festival.
In an area deeply steeped in tradition and home to an extraordinarily rich culture, the setting was perfect to drive home the role of the Onga brand as an integral part of the lives of Ghanaians. The fact that the Essiama traditional area is home to the birthplace of Ghana’s first president Kwame Nkrumah added to the auspiciousness of the occasion.
The cooking contest, organized by Onga as part of the festival, was witnessed by a full retinue of chiefs and queen mothers of the area and was designed to bring out the unique culinary practices of the Essiama area.
A total of 10 contestants competed in five groups of two contestants each. The competing teams were drawn from local women’s groups, the media, restaurant operators and the palace. The diversity of the competing groups added its own unique touch to the competition and aroused the curiosity of the locals who were dying to see which group would emerge with superior cooking skills.
After an hour of cooking, judges sampled the various meals on display and chose the winning group to loud cheers from the crowd. The contestants went home with a variety of prizes, ranging from microwave ovens and gas cookers to beautiful hampers of Onga products.
In a statement afterwards, Nana Kofi Amgbo IV Chief of Essiama, expressed gratitude that Onga had chosen to celebrate with the people of Essiama, as they were usually a forgotten area. “The people of Essiama will always remember this year’s celebration. We look forward to many more festivals with Onga,” he said.
The entire event was covered by a partner television station and packaged into a 30-minute magazine programme to be rebroadcast subsequently.