NAPRO inks supply contract with Choppies
Onalenna Kelebeile | Wednesday February 1, 2017 18:11
This major breakthrough for the horticultural processing plant was secured a fortnight ago following negotiations that started last July.
Choppies will be the main consumer and it is expected to constitute 40% of NAPRO’s market. “We are ready to start loading Choppies stores. We have already received orders from Choppies Bobonong, Kanye, Selebi-Phikwe, Francistown and other areas. We have the capacity to meet the Choppies demand,” operations manager, Ramogoma Kaisara told Mmegi Business.
Some of the products that NAPRO will supply to Choppies include mixed vegetables pickles, tomato sauce, atchar and beetroot.
NAPRO’s monthly output currently stands at 191,136 cases. They produce 83,604 cases of tomato sauce, 75,096 cases of atchar and 32,436 of beetroot a month.
A case contains twenty-four 375 millilitres of tomato sauce and twenty-four 450 grammes of pickles and beetroot.
Securing a massive deal with Choppies Stores is a major breakthrough and according to Kaisara it will motivate them to keep searching for other bigger markets.
They are already in talks with retailers such as Spar, Pick n Pay, Sefalana, other wholesales as well as government institutions.
NAPRO is also on the verge of nailing another massive contract with a government institution.
Kaisara indicated that the NAPRO plant is not operating at the level they would want it to at, but they are in a good position to satisfy the Choppies market.
“We may have limitations if the demand is very high but our expansion will be subject to availability of market and raw material supply. We are currently reviewing our production figures and if the demand is high, we will operate 24 hours so that we run continuously,” he said.
NAPRO started its product roll out in September last year although penetrating the market has been slow.
Through brand activation exercises they toured other towns and cities to showcase their products and this has started yielding positive results.
NAPRO is currently in the process of contracting farmers to supply the plant with raw materials.
“We have received expression of interest from farmers and we will soon do the evaluations,” he added.
He explained that natural disasters are a challenge in farming and cited heat wave that affected produce last year followed by storms and the tomato leaf miner.
“To contract them, farmers must put in place resources to mitigate natural disasters. We are working with the ministry of agriculture experts to assist us with expertise,” he said.
However, NAPRO will not only look to contracted farmers for raw material supply, but will leave the door open to small-scale farmers and those under poverty eradication programme.
“We will empower small scale farmers so that they are able to become contract farmers in future. Our evaluations have shown that there is great potential by our local farmers,” he said.
NAPRO has never imported any raw material since starting production but has been receiving supply locally.
The other challenge they face is a lot of resistance on the market because consumers are not yet used to the new products.
“Brand loyalty is a process but we will vigorously improve on our marketing strategies. But generally our outlook is promising as NAPRO.”