“Together” Group has been selling Belarusian food products to Africa since 2019. Its main partner is Nigeria, but co-operation is under way also with Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire and Gambia. The company exports large quantities of oatmeal flakes, as well as other groceries like flour and rapeseed oil. Having finally established, structured and fine-tuned its trade with these countries, the company went a thorny path to success. Its head Yuri Finsky shared with us how to find partners in Africa and work with them safely.
Yuri Anatolievich, your company is a service provider in the field of advertising, marketing and graphic design. How did it happen that you started selling food to Africa?
The “Together” group of companies, which has been in the market since 2008, has several lines of business. First, printing services, graphic design, development of labels, packaging, outdoor advertising. Second, creation and promotion of websites, strategic marketing, sales building, all that has to do with the digital. For the last eight years, we have been expanding these activities outside Belarus, launching co-operation with 12 countries.
When you deal with product packaging and labelling all the time, you get to know the product itself, its manufacturers, what it takes to make it. As a result, we got a good impression of the quality of the Belarusian brand. At the same time, we realised that our goods are heavily undervalued in the world market by various criteria, from packaging to price. So we thought it to be a good idea to launch some new kind of export.
How did you get started? What did you do to find your first clients?
We started by promoting our concept among the foreign clients who ordered food packaging from us. And it turned out that one of our American partners knew of Belarus not just from random googling: he had worked for many years at the American Embassy in Moscow and had a very good idea of Belarusian goods. He runs a logistics business in Florida among other things, and Africa is one of most popular shipment destinations. The American supported our idea, and we got down to work together. We selected a number of Belarusian products that could be of interest to Africans, and samples were sent to African countries through the new partner who came to Belarus to pick them up. When the Africans gave us positive feedbacks, we sent them trial batches. This is how we got regular customers.
Another method we used was parsing, cold-calling local importers whom we had looked up through open sources. Attending international exhibitions is useful to expand the client base. There are a lot of them in Nigeria. Reaching out to local business communities helps networking.
Given your experience with the African market, you must have a clear vision of what they need here?
Speaking from my own experience, most companies seeking to enter the African market do not understand the specifics of working with this continent and its people. We frequently knock on the wrong doors, stake on the wrong products and expect wrong results. The African continent is a colossal territory with each country different in mentality, living standards, trade and economic affiliations. It is wrong to think that all of Africa is poor and they would jump at your offer. For example, all kinds of global brands – Coca-Cola, Nestle and others – have factories in Nigeria, which is a most affluent country on the continent. And our, say, confectionery-makers are unlikely to come and take the market hands-down. This can happen in theory, but here we need a strategy, and a different one for every region. To us, our candy brands, which are part of every Belarusian’s daily diet, symbolize our history, traditions, and generational ties. But the same very ‘korovki’, ‘alenki’ and ‘bells’ with their bright wrappers and intricate names would only confuse Africans.
Among things likely to interest them, are groceries with a long shelf life. This includes pasta, flour, milk powder, biscuits, ketchups, spices etc. Non-food products like nappies, cleaners and disinfectants are in particular demand. There is a need for medicines to help with headaches and gastrointestinal problems, as well as for biologically active supplements. Products for livestock-breeding, such as veterinary drugs, are also required. Many African countries focus on agriculture, and are ready to invest in it as much as they can. And then, of course, there are tractors, harvesting machinery, and spare parts.
A very promising niche is used diesel generators. Power failures there are frequent, blackouts may last for 6-8 hours, so there must be demand for such goods.
As a packaging expert, what could you say about the Africans’ preferences on this side of the goods?
First of all, Africans need the products to be conveniently batched in different volumes: 100, 500 grams, 1 kilo depending on the product type. The second very important requirement is that bulk goods should be packaged in plastic jars in the manner of our glass jars. Paper packaging or sacks will not do. The problem is that there are very special ants in Africa, which momentarily chew up weak containers. During the rainy season, which lasts several months a year, these insects multiply very quickly, and if a single one gets inside, you can throw away the whole bag. It is a mystery to me, frankly, why no one has ever thought of producing such plastic packaging for Africa.
As for the visual design of the product, you don't necessarily have to create something unique for every country, but you still have to keep up with the times and remember who your product is for. For example, it would be good to add some ethnic motifs, national colours, ornaments, textures, patterns to the basic version of the label, as well as to design a new interesting form of the packaging itself. The key is to study the culture, traditions and preferences of the country you plan to enter. One can look at how established brands design their packaging for Africa, for example.
And one final tip: all information on the labels should be in English, ideally also in the local language.
What are the risks of trading with African countries?
In fact, there are plenty of risks. First of all, the economic development of African countries has its own peculiarities. Some economies are so unpredictable that it is hard to calculate anything even for the short term. For instance, inflation can jump several thousand times over a brief period. There is also confusion with official and unofficial exchange rates of world currencies. Another problem is imperfect legislation. You can thoroughly study the customs rules of the importing country, but the other side interprets them in its own way. As a result, your cargo may be stuck in the port for a long time, producing unwanted costs.
When entering the African market, one needs to mind the peculiarities of the local mentality. Sadly, African countries have the highest fraud incidence, and the same Nigeria rates among the continent’s three most notorious states. E-mails offering to invest a staggering inheritance in your business, which at one time flooded all mailboxes, come from there. Africans are well aware of the rising commercial interests toward their countries and are taking advantage of it. They can order goods from you, but without prepayment, promising instead a profitable partnership, fast delivery – all kinds of assurances. If you fall for it, you end up with no money and goods.
At the beginning, we found ourselves in a similar situation. One local saw our label on the oatmeal bags in an African port and wanted to buy them from us. At that time, we worked only on a 100 per cent prepayment terms, but the new partner persuaded us to take only half the price, promising to pay the rest on cargo’s arrival. In the end, when the goods arrived, our man was without money. His reckoning was that, once we brought the goods, we would agree to sell it at half-price: it was very expensive to bring it back or store it at the port. But we found another client right on the spot, who bought some of the shipment, and then we went on working with him.
What is the best way to take goods to Africa?
Our company used to get a lot of requests from Africa to calculate logistics, packaging and other costs. The figures came out very big. Therefore, my first message: don’t be too enthusiastic about this market. When you deal with Africa, keep in mind the far distances and do not try to “conquer space” and cover as many countries as possible. Rather, focus on a specific region or even a city. For example, there are 10 million people living in Lagos, Nigeria, and that is only officially. Unofficial numbers are twice as big. The market is vast, and people with all kinds of incomes live here.
As for the transport itself, we use multimodal and maritime options. There was a case when we sent a cargo first by road, then by railway and finally by sea. We tried to work with Klaipeda, then with Gdansk. At one point, interruptions began, as external factors changed dramatically. Now, in the view of the current geopolitical situation, we found other options to deliver to African ports and keep working.
Belarus is unfortunately land-locked and very far from the African continent. In this sense we badly lose out to our competitors. While UK delivers its oats in just two weeks, our goods take 45 days to reach the African shores. Nevertheless, it is worth a try: the African market is a fast-growing and interesting one. If one is lucky to find the right client, choose the right price and logistics, one can sell 40 to 200 tons of products a month and make good revenues.
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