Promasidor holds its first ever Export Conference
For the Business Development unit of the Group, the year 2016 was ushered in by the first ever Promasidor Export Conference. From Thursday January 21st to Friday 22nd, led by Daniel De Suza, the group Business Development Director and his lieutenants Jean-Claude Aba and Bench Kajyambere, distributors from 11 countries in East, Central and West Africa, alongside our own Promasidor representatives, from Nigeria, Ghana and the Group converged at the Hotel Ibis, in the vibrant city of Lomé in Togo, West Africa.
Delegates started arriving as early as Tuesday January 19th to show how excited they were to be at the conference. For many, this was the first time we were meeting each other. After the rigorous security checks at the hotel entrance, in the wake of a terrorist attack at an hotel in (not so…) nearby Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, the conference kick-started with the introduction of Promasidor in Africa by the big boss himself, our Chairman, Mr. Mark Rose. He shared the vision of Promasidor with our distributors: "To be Africa's leading FMCG food business by delivering continued sustainable high growth". Insisting, among other things, on the 'family' values and culture we have in common with them.
During the two-day packed conference, we looked at the competitive landscape and opportunities in each country represented; and the respective distributors did presentations from each country. Countries were grouped in threes at a time and participants were moving from one country to another to learn more.
In between country presentations, distributors were given a thorough review of Promasidor's product portfolio through the different categories: Dairy and Beverages, presented by Herve Lekemo, Category Directory; Culinary and Cereals, presented by Justin Harris, Category Director. We also had Festus Tettey, Head of Marketing, and Timo van Vooren, head of Sales & Marketing, from Promasidor Nigeria and Ghana respectively present on "Promotion, Best practice and the Importance of Forecasting".
There was a lot of excitement around our large product portfolio and the prospects of exporting more products in the future from even more locations. Indeed, the future looks bright. One of the highlights of the program was the market visit in the heart of the sunny city of Lomé, where our brands such as Onga and Cowbell are gradually becoming household names.
The conference ended with one-onone meetings with our distributors, recalibrating for a fruitful year ahead. The countries represented were: Togo, Rwanda, Burundi, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Niger, Benin, Liberia and Chad. The distributor from the Central African Republic could not make it as a result of a last minute flight cancellation.