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Cultivate programme propels Tanzanian agri-business to enter the export market

09 March 2023

Cultivate programme propels Tanzanian agri-business to enter the export market

“Before joining Cultivate we were not doing research to know how other businesses were branding their products, we were not keeping records and we had no proper hiring procedures,” said Mr Said Mtoro, founder of Rey Products Group located in the Singida region of Tanzania.

Failure to do market research made it hard to penetrate new markets while lack of up to date records made it difficult to understand the financial position of the enterprise.

Established in 2014 with capital of 15,000,000 Tanzanian Shillings (TZS) and five employees, Rey Products Group specialises in sunflower processing, with their main products being sunflower oil and seed cake.

When Mr Mtoro heard about the Cultivate Guided Grow Your Business (GGYB) programme, which was funded by the Vitol Foundation and implemented by Farm Africa in Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia, he was interested to find out how his business could benefit. This was especially after being informed that the training would cover “how to know customers and markets, track transactions and stock, streamline operations and plan for growth”.

From April 2022, he undertook the six months training programme offered in collaboration with African Management Institute (AMI) to early stage enterprises.

As a result of the training, we have engaged an expert in bookkeeping and we conduct market research. We also recruit employees by advertising and conducting interviews so that we can get competent employees.

Said Mtoro

The guidance by Farm Africa staff has helped the company to improve their record keeping, provide better customer service, have the right team in place, in addition to following labour laws, doing market research, setting business goals and doing financial analysis.

The improved business practices enabled Rey Products Group to secure a loan from NMB bank Singida Branch of TZS 15,000,000. This pushed their working capital to TZS 74,000,000, (a 25% increase) and the number of employees to 15. The market for their sunflower oil has also expanded to Dar es Salaam, Kilimanjaro and Kagera Regions while sunflower seed cake is now being exported to Kenya.

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