'I struggled to find products for Afro hair. So I'm transforming the face of business - with a huge shopping expo in Manchester'

Earlier this year, the Black Pound Report revealed that £4.5bn of Multi-Ethnic consumers’ disposable income is being ignored or overlooked by big brands and British businesses. The report - the UK’s most comprehensive research into the Multi-Ethnic consumer - reveals the economic power of the Multi-Ethnic individual, exploring the challenges they face engaging with brands and businesses.

Digging deeper, the report also found that Multi-Ethnic consumers are spending £230m every month on health and beauty, yet nearly four in 10 Black female shoppers stated that it isn’t easy to find cosmetics and skin care suited to them. 22 percent also said they needed to go to specialist shops to get their health and beauty products - increasing to 30 percent for Black women.

This is an issue that Monique Kufuor is all too familiar with. Frustrated by the lack of diverse products for herself and her children, in 2018 she launched The Black Owned Business Exhibition (BOBExpo) in Manchester, driven by a desire to elevate Black businesses throughout Britain.

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“The expo is your one-stop shop for all your cultural and diverse products,” Monique explains. “The aim is to increase the visibility of Black-owned brands - you would usually walk into a business expo and not see many, but there are lots.

“The reason I set it up was that I struggled to find afro-specific products for my hair, and this was a shared problem within the Black community- that diverse products are not easily accessible.”

Monique, who lives in Stockport, was previously a mental health nurse. It was while she was on maternity leave a few years ago that she really