About us

The Ishyo Foods story

Ishyo Foods Ltd’s Sharon Akanyana is the Founder and Managing Director. Sharon started the business from humble origins in her home kitchen, with a love of cooking and high-quality local ingredients.

Sharon has a degree in agriculture and a Masters in developmental studies. She was looking for work but hadn’t found any. This, however, gave her ample time to explore her passion for cooking.

When she shared her fresh, homemade yoghurt and fruit jams with friends and family, they loved her products. So, the idea of turning passion into business was born.

“Yummy Rwandan food, made from beautiful Rwandan ingredients, affordable to all and known world-wide for quality and value.”

Sharon Akanyana, Founder and Managing Director, Ishyo Foods

Ishyo Foods fresh fruit jams using local Rwandan produce

Sustainable buying choices

Sharon wanted to make it easy for Rwandans to find high-quality, healthy food made from locally sourced, natural produce.

Currently, many Rwandan families are dependent on overpriced, imported foods. These foods also have a heavy environmental footprint.

Ishyo Foods helps tackle this problem by producing fruit jams and yoghurts that are high-quality and affordable.

Rwanda is a country blessed with nutrient-rich soils and a perfect climate for growing high quality fruit and producing rich milk from dairy herds.

It made sense to harness this sustainable source of premium local produce.At the same time, we directly support small-scale Rwandan farmers.

Ishyo Foods aims to provide healthy, affordable, and sustainable buying choices for all Rwandans.

A brighter future for Rwanda

Genocide against the tutsi in Rwanda was a dark time. However, today Rwandans want to focus on growth and rebuilding, while supporting our communities and those less fortunate. Creating new, high quality, high value industries is a critical element of re-building a stronger, prosperous Rwanda.

Ishyo Foods is proud to be part of the new Rwanda. Growing and upscaling our business means we can support even more Rwandan families in our factory, and farms.

Every jar of Ishyo jam and pot of Ishyo yoghurt helps improve livelihoods, security and the wellbeing of Rwandans, especially women and children. Slowly, we are building stronger, more resilient communities with greater economic security.

We want to share our delicious jams and yoghurts with as many people as possible. We are open to international partners to share our high quality, affordable jams made in Rwanda.

Our Adherance to Food Safety Policies

ISHYO FOODS Ltd is committed to provide competitive Yoghurts and Jam Products of the highest quality to its customers. For achieving this goal, the company consistently satisfies the mutually agreed needs and expectations of its customers, achieve business success and ensures that the products are always safe and competitive by conforming to customer, statutory and regulatory requirements.

Achievement of this policy involves all Employees being individually responsible for the quality of their work, resulting in a continual improvement culture and favourable environment for all. All Employees are provided with the food safety training necessary to enable them to perform their tasks and are responsible for ensuring that they do so in a hygienic manner so that the safety of the Products and their production processes are not put at risk.

This policy is thoroughly communicated throughout the organization and its copy is posted where employees pass frequently in both Kinyarwanda and English.

This policy will be kept up to date, particularly when the production process changes in nature and size. To ensure continual improvement of the company food safety management system this food safety policy and the way in which it is operated will be reviewed and redesigned on annually basis.