In Zambia, a country where food production and distribution is a prolific and complex issue, there is a great onus on governments and businesses to provide sustainable and affordable foodstuffs to the populace. With poor harvests, plummeting market prices, and low wages for farmers, malnutrition and poverty have become daily struggles for many people. Tackling these problems has been taken on not only by the government, but also businesses like Zambeef, who are taking it upon themselves to help feed the nation.
In Zambia, ensuring that there is plenty of quality food available for an ever growing population has long been an issue. Whilst the government’s ‘Feed the Future Campaign’ is gradually ensuring that things change; farmers are receiving more education and fairer prices and investment in agricultural research and development is on the rise; businesses are also taking a stand against food shortages.
Companies such as Zambeef are paving the way for sustainable, efficient and affordable food distribution and in the process, also becoming extremely successful. Head of Marketing and Corporate Affairs, Felix Lupinda has stated: “Food plays an important role in the life of a nation. And there are many challenges affecting food security in the world”. As such, his company arediligently working to ensure that the people of Zambia do not go hungry.
Zambeef is a leading supplier of meat, poultry, cereals and oils to Zambia and beyond, with premises also located in Ghana and Nigeria. Through dedication to ensuring efficient production, fair pricing, the building of business relationships and a staunch commitment to sustainable food sourcing, the company have risen to become Zambia’s leading meat supplier, with an annual revenue of $275 million.
In discussing why Zambeef are performing so well within an often treacherous marketplace, Joint-CEO, Carl Irwin has said: “Zambeef’s retail and distribution network has been structured to ensure customers have easy and convenient access to all our products.” Evidently, seamless delivery of their goods is of paramount importance to Zambeef, as is their dedication to ensuring that their customers are able to obtain product easily. Furthermore in December 2015, Joint-CEO Francis Grogan also stated: “Zambeef has had a successful operational year despite the challenges in the economy and retains a positive outlook towards its operations and has set sights on continuing to grow its operations in the next financial year.”
Quite clearly efficiency and a positive attitude have both been driving forces behind the company’s success, the magnitude of which is remarkable.
The company as it exists today hails from very humble beginnings. In 1994, the workforce consisted of just 60 employees, slaughtering around 180 cattle a month in a small rented abattoir. The meat was then transported in a single Land Rover for sale in just two local butcheries. Contemporarily, the company now employ approximately 5800 workers and cull 55,000 cows, 50,000 pigs and six million chickens per year. Today, Zambeef is the country’s second fastest growing retailer, beating stalwarts such as Woolworths, Spar and Shoprite. In 2013 alone, the company saw a phenomenal 23% growth in revenue and as of 2015 operated from 150 premises, with more to be acquired this year.
However, it is not just the product itself that has contributed to Zambeef’s success. A significant proportion of their income also derives from their cold chain food production – the storage and distribution of product in a temperature controlled environment. The company has concentrated on improving and expanding this arm of the business and as Grogan states: “These are cash generating operations that will form the cornerstone of Zambeef’s future success.”
Such success has undeniably been achieved as in December 2015 Zambeef reported a profit rise of 189%.
Furthermore, in January 2016, it was announced that Zambeef was the best performing food producer at the London Stock Exchange, with share prices doubling from 5.75p to an astonishing 11.5p in just two months. As a result of this, Irwin said proudly: “Zambeef’s share price in London has performed particularly well and is a measure of the confidence that investors place in Zambeef and Zambia as a whole.”
Accordingly, Zambeef’s success is not just down to an astute business acumen, but also to the fact that they strive to operate in such a way that demonstrates reliability, affordability and responsibility.
This point is most evident in the fact that Zambeef has a dedication to ensuring sustainable production of their goods. Not only does this safeguard future supply, but also protects the environment and creates jobs within the agricultural and farming sectors. This imperative to operate sustainably has been discussed at length by Lupinda, who has acknowledged that“Zambia does have abundant resources in the form of water, arable land and manpower, but there is need to maintain and protect those resources by ensuring they are used wisely”. He goes on to state that“Zambeef has a zero waste policy which tries to keep waste to a minimum and build on value addition and recycling models. For example, the remains from our crop harvesting of wheat and corn are processed to feed the cattle or recycled into organic fertiliser for the fields”. Such a selfless business practice is truly admirable, with such a large company eschewing greed or the opportunity to take advantage of plentiful resources in order to ensure not only their future prosperity, but a continual supply of goods to their customers.
The marketplace will forever be a volatile area for the food sector and it must not be forgotten that extraneous factors such as climate change are also burgeoning challenges that these industries must contend with. But with an approach to food supply and distribution which is both efficient and conscientious, it is no wonder that Zambeef have obtained such a high level of success and are continuing to do so. Undeniably, the company are spearheading a movement in which not only can food supply become a prosperous enterprise but it can make a real impact on the lives of other retailers and indeed, help to feed the nation.