The Tomato-Powered Beauty Revolution in Ghana

“What happens when the harvest is plentiful and the kitchen becomes too small to contain it?”

In Ghana, for decades the answer has been waste. Thousands of metric tons of tomatoes go unsold, dumped, or left to rot in open markets, while the nation spends hundreds of millions annually to import the same crop during lean seasons. The absence of a functional preservation and processing culture has created an industrial vacuum, one that leaves rural farmers vulnerable, season after season.

But that narrative is beginning to shift. Innovation is steadily filling the gap where policy and infrastructure have long fallen short. At the forefront of this change is Fredrick Sogbe, founder of Zayn Cosmetics, whose enterprise transforms surplus tomatoes into high-quality skincare products. His work exists at the intersection of industrialization and ingenuity, reimagining a crop that has long been confined to a domestic kitchen staple.

Fredrick Sogbe CEO of Zayn Cosmetics

The Problem of Plenty

Fredrick Sogbe did not set out to become a cosmetic entrepreneur. His journey began in Yeji, a tomato-farming community in the Bono Region, during his National Service. Posted as a teacher, he saw firsthand the brutal reality of post-harvest losses. Each season, farmers toiled only to watch their harvest rot and sold at giveaway prices. They only depended on a single market channel that involves selling to tomatoes “Market Queens” who transported the tomatoes to Accra.

“One moment that touched my heart and inspired me to add value to tomatoes in order to preserve its life span, was when one of my brilliant students had to stop schooling because his father was in debt and had to flee from the village after failing to sell all his tomatoes.  It was heartbreaking, and I realized this was not an isolated case, many farmers faced the same problem.” Fredrick recalls.

This incident did not only stir Fredrick’s sympathy, it catalyzed a transformation. He began to interrogate the structural limitations surrounding tomatoes, questioning why a crop so widely cultivated was solely utilized for food. Drawing inspiration from oral traditions, he recalled how tomatoes had been used in treating infant ailments and skin conditions in the past. That cultural memory became the seed of his cosmetics product invention.

“I knew tomatoes was used to cure an infant disease locally known as “Amo” so I knew I could not go wrong with this crop. With my National Service stipend, I created my first bar soap. I bought the ingredient and tried making soap for the first time. The whole idea was to teach these farmers how to add value to their tomatoes so they will not solely depend on the market queens for sales”

With no background in soap making but a keen eye for details, he began to understudy  a local soap maker. This exposure provided a solid groundwork for his first prototype that lathered beautifully, even in river water, and was well received in the village. What began as an act of community service gradually morphed into a business model with vast potential.

After completing his national service, Fredrick moved to Accra where he refined his formulation and added three additional variants infusions with lemon, aloe vera, and honey to suit different skin types. Today, Zayn Cosmetics offers different variant of soaps and essential oils made from tomato seeds, neem, coconut, and mint, targeting a growing demand for organic skincare.

Value Addition as an Economic Strategy

Ghana loses approximately 35–40% of its annual 350,000 metric tons of tomato production to post-harvest spoilage. Simultaneously, the country imports an estimated $400 million worth of tomatoes from Burkina Faso annually. This paradox showcases a broken value chain, a gap Zayn Cosmetics aims to close. Instead of pushing for conventional canning, a method Ghana has repeatedly failed to sustain, Fredrick’s approach reimagines tomatoes as a raw material for the beauty industry. In doing so, he positions Ghana as an agricultural producer and a participant in the global organic cosmetics market.

“We are gradually padding into a danger zone. If you look back 40 years ago, we were producing tomatoes at peak levels, at the time it was around 700,000 metric tons. Now, that figure has dropped. Farmers are moving away from tomato production. The reason is simple, they are not getting enough value from what they grow.”

His model provides steady demand for farmers in the Bono Region, Kumasi, and Ada, helping them stabilize income in a notoriously volatile sector.

“Farming is not the problem, it is the lack of value post-harvest that drives farmers away. People don’t stop farming because they hate it. They stop because the value dies after harvest.” Fredrick explains.

Fredrick is acutely aware that cosmetics alone cannot solve Ghana’s food security woes. But he insists that the path to security is not always through food availability, it is through food viability.  Data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation (FAO) supports this claim: post-harvest losses in sub-Saharan Africa can reach up to 80% in some crops. These losses are not merely economic, they are existential, particularly for rural youth and women.

Albert Kwaku Abbeyquaye, a molecular biologist who monitors formulation consistency and explores synergies between cosmetic science and waste valorization at Zayn Cosmetics shares his take on post-harvest waste in Ghana.

“Waste is a matter of perspective. What one discards, another refines. Our challenge in Ghana is not technical, it’s attitudinal.”  says Albert.

Albert Kwaku Abbeyquaye, a molecular biologist at Zayn Cosmetics

Women at the Centre: Empowerment Through Production

While Fredrick may be the visionary behind Zayn Cosmetics, the real heart of the enterprise lies in its deliberate and powerful investment in women.

“The cosmetics industry naturally intersects with women’s lives, so if women are not leading the production, representation, and growth of this vision, then we are missing the point entirely.” Fredrick asserts

Zayn’s supply chain relies on women farmers who cultivate tomatoes, process, and package the cosmetics. For Fredrick, female leadership is not peripheral, it is core to how the business sustains itself.

Patience Addo, a beautician who now works as a production staff, exemplifies this impact. “I have learnt how to be productive even with waste.” she explains.

The financial stability the job provides has become a reliable counterbalance to the unpredictability of freelance beautician work. “Even when the salon is quiet, I know I have something to fall back on. That security changes everything.”

Zayn Cosmetic soap

Similarly, Stella Amankwah, a young lady who battled with employment, speaks about the discipline and focus Zayn Cosmetics has instilled in her life. “When you’re working, you don’t just learn a trade, you learn how to structure your time,” she says.

The daily routines and responsibilities at Zayn have reoriented her priorities, distancing her from the vulnerabilities that entrap many young women in her community. These women are not passive beneficiaries of employment. They are co-creators of a model that defies conventional hierarchies.

Challenges and the Road Ahead

Despite the success, Fredrick faces a litany of challenges, including inconsistent raw material supply due to seasonal farming, limited storage capacity, market saturation risks, and a small operational team stretched across multiple responsibilities. Yet his vision remains unshaken.

“Our output is about 1,500 soap cubes weekly, around 5,000 monthly. And we still can’t meet demand,” he notes.

The ambition is not just to scale up production globally, it is to influence how people perceive African agriculture and skincare.

Fredrick is also mentoring young entrepreneurs, recently speaking at the University of Cape Coast and Ghana Export Promotion Authority to showcase how local resources can drive high-value innovation.

A Model for Rural Revival

Fredrick embodies the kind of innovation Ghana urgently needs: a homegrown, practical, and deeply rooted invention crafted in realities. His transformation of surplus tomatoes into skincare products is not just a story of entrepreneurship; it is an imprint of what is possible. By embedding tomatoes within a non-food value chain, Fredrick challenges the colonial-era logic that assigned Africa the role of raw material exporter. In his model, the tomato is not exported, it is transformed, marketed, and sold complete with intellectual property and local branding. Tomatoes is no longer a symbol of fragility, but of sovereignty.