Adesanya Ruth Is Building a Healthier Drink for Nigerian Households With Hedone Zobo

Walk into any Nigerian market or supermarket and the shelves are stacked with drinks built on artificial flavours, preservatives, and additives. Adesanya Ruth looked at that reality and decided to build something different.

Hedone Zobo Drink is a natural beverage brand from Ogun State built around hibiscus flower, ginger, cloves, and nutritional fruits. No artificial preservatives, no additives. Just a drink that Ruth believes every Nigerian household should be able to reach for as a healthy, affordable, and culturally familiar alternative to the synthetic options currently dominating the market.

The product is currently available in four flavours: Apple, Pineapple, Orange, and Tropical, offered in cans and a 5-litre family size. The range is designed to give households options, whether buying for daily consumption or stocking up for larger gatherings where zobo is already a familiar presence.

Ruth’s vision for Hedone Zobo goes beyond the current product format. The roadmap includes expanding into powder form for consumers who want to prepare it as a tea or swallow, and scaling into cans, bottles, and sachets at a price point that works for everyday Nigerian budgets. The long-term ambition is to build Hedone Zobo into a fully bottled beverage company producing at scale for both national and international markets, while keeping the cultural roots of zobo firmly at the center of the brand.

The problem Ruth is solving is straightforward but significant. Most commercially available drinks in Nigeria are loaded with artificial ingredients that carry long-term health risks many consumers are not fully aware of. Hedone Zobo positions itself as the household drink that does not require that trade-off: nutritious, natural, and made from ingredients Nigerians have trusted for generations.

The brand is also making a case for local produce at a time when Nigeria’s food and beverage sector is increasingly dominated by imported or heavily processed alternatives. Ruth has flagged government support and investment in local produce as a key factor in scaling the business, a signal that Hedone Zobo sees itself not just as a product but as part of a broader argument for homegrown Nigerian food innovation.

For Ogun State’s ecosystem, Hedone Zobo is a reminder that innovation does not always look like software. Sometimes it looks like a founder taking a drink that already belongs to the culture and building a brand around it that can travel.