A family in Accra has kept an indigenous Ghanaian pork business alive for more than 100 years, passing the trade down through several generations.

The business, which started at the Jamestown Chief Palace, was founded by the great-grandmother of the current owner, Naa Afrowa, a queen mother.

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According to Naa Afrowa in a 2024 GhanaWeb interview, the business began as a household activity and was kept within the family by her grandmother, and later her mother took over.

She said she developed an interest in the work as a child and began helping her mother when she was 10 years old and later took over the business when the family moved from Jamestown to Adabraka.

“My great-grandmother started the business and my grandmother inherited it. They used to be at Jamestown Chief Palace and that’s where my grandmother hailed. I enjoyed house chores a lot, so, I started helping my mother with the business when I was 10 years old.

“I took over from my mother when we relocated to Adabraka, so, I have been handling the business for 20 years now. The business started like a household chore,” she said.

The family uses the traditional clay oven to bake the pork, a method Naa Afrowa says helps remove much of the fat from the meat.

She said the method is healthier because pork contains a lot of fat.

“Pork meat has lots of fat so frying it in oil makes it unhealthy so our clay oven baking method rather drains all the fat in the pork meat. We don’t fry ours,” she explained.

Explaining the preparation process that gives their pork its unique taste, Afrowa said the meat is sourced from the Pig Farm area and brought to the family’s location whole before it is processed.

The meat is first cut into different sizes and parts, after which the remaining pieces of fur are scraped off with a blade. It is then washed thoroughly and marinated with salt for some time.

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After the salt has been absorbed, they coat the meat with pepper before placing it directly in the clay oven to bake.

The family’s traditional method of preparing the pork is one of the practices that has helped preserve the business across generations.

Watch her video with GhanaWeb below:



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