Promoting exports of food products from Malawi

2019-07-12T07:44:37+00:00February 28th, 2019|Tags: , , , |

SMEs in Malawi are preparing to export sunflower oil, peanut butter and chili sauce, amongst others. During a workshop in Malawi, our consultant Kasper Kerver presented export opportunities. He challenged the entrepreneurs to make the most of these opportunities by developing a marketing strategy. With this support, entrepreneurs like Endrina in the picture below can scale up their business and generate more income and employment.  The workshop was part of a private sector development programme with partners Palladium and the Malawi Investment and Trade Centre (MITC). This programme improves access to markets and finance for SMEs. It also builds capacity [Read more]

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South East Asian producers getting ready for BioTrade exports

2019-02-07T14:16:57+00:00December 21st, 2018|Tags: , , , , , , , |

ProFound experts Robbie Hogervorst and Aafke van Sprundel conducted a series of market entry strategy trainings in Kuala Lumpur, Yangon and Mandalay for the Helvetas Regional BioTrade Project South East Asia. More than 20 Vietnamese, Lao and Myanmar companies were trained and supported to develop their first market entry strategy. A second objective was to build capacities of business associations to start developing market entry services to their members.    During the workshop, the participants were guided to define how they wanted to position themselves on the market. Do they want to be a high end, a sustainable, ethical, unique [Read more]

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Tunisian and Balkan BSOs’ steep learning curve at HI/NI trade fair Frankfurt

2019-04-12T14:15:56+00:00December 5th, 2018|Tags: , , , , , , |

ProFound’s senior consultant Gustavo Ferro attended the Health Ingredients / Natural Ingredients trade fair in Frankfurt. He was supporting SIPPO in a series of capacity-building activities for Business Support Organisations from Tunisia and the Balkans. For example learning from orientation meetings with European buyers as well as competing suppliers and support organisations such as CBI. In addition to visiting the trade fair itself, the BSOs met with the European Spice Association (ESA) in Bonn and with the European Federation of Essential Oils to explore synergies and channels for future collaboration. Gustavo is working together with SIPPO’s external experts Teresa Hüttenhofer and Andrew [Read more]

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Developing a Story for Pakistan

2020-09-14T15:26:09+00:00November 22nd, 2018|Tags: , , |

Founder of ProFound Bert-Jan Ottens visited natural ingredient companies near Lahore, Pakistan, for CBI technical assistance. He evaluated the companies' obtained practices in sustainable sourcing, value added processing, CSR, certification and marketing strategies. "Again invigorated by so many positive encounters and dialogues these 2 weeks of training. Entrepreneurs and service providers/institutions such as Ministry of Commerce/TDAP, Inspector General of Forests, Forestry Service, FAO, Control Union; all actively participated to design strategies for sustainable sourcing & biodiversity, quality and compliance/certification. Companies are making good progress to access European markets.  I am very proud of company achievements!" - Bert-Jan Ottens Our [Read more]

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Launch of South Africa’s Natural Ingredients Export Strategy

2020-03-02T17:22:37+00:00October 25th, 2018|Tags: , , , , |

ProFound is proud to have been part of the launch of the South African natural ingredients export strategy 16-17 October 2018. The natural ingredients sector is a key segment of the government's re-industrialisation drive, with vital links to key economic policies such as the National Development Plan, Industrial Policy Action Plan and the New Growth Path. Economic growth needs to accelerate in a more inclusive manner and the natural ingredients sector is one sector that can achieve this. This sector holds great potential for South Africa because the global cosmetics, health and food markets are growing, in particular for [Read more]

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Paving Colombia’s way to the international cocoa market

2019-03-01T15:08:51+00:00September 19th, 2018|Tags: , , , , , |

ProFound’s senior consultant Gustavo Ferro spent the last few weeks in Colombia, where he has worked in different activities of Swisscontact’s Colombia + Competitiva (C+C) programme. Gustavo is part of Swisscontact’s Swiss Expert Network (SEN), and has been advising on C+C’s specialty cocoa projects. The specialty cocoa sector in Colombia has an enormous potential to thrive. The country has a pallet of around 9 cocoa-producing regions with diverse agro-climatic and social characteristics. Colombia’s cocoa bean production reached new records in 2017, at over 60 thousand tonnes. Challenges in Colombia's cocoa bean exports  At the moment, only around 20% of Colombia’s [Read more]

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Upcoming activities in Q2

2020-03-04T13:35:21+00:00March 29th, 2018|Tags: , , , , , , , |

Amsterdam 17-19 April: introducing 21 exporters to the cosmetic market From 17-19 April you can find us at "in-cosmetics" in Amsterdam, the global trade fair for cosmetic ingredients. Visit CBI stand A30 to find business opportunities with 18 exporters from South Africa, Peru and Colombia. They will present a wide range of cosmetic ingredients, including luxurious oils, exquisite fragrances and innovative botanical extracts.  We will introduce three companies from Nepal and Tunisia to potential buyers during a selling mission, together with the Import Promotion Desk. These producers of organic essential and vegetable oils will visit the in-cosmetics trade fair. After the [Read more]

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Results of one year NI-CheckApp: alignment with control bodies, suppliers and buyers

2019-04-12T15:22:19+00:00March 8th, 2018|Tags: , , , , |

In 2017, ProFound launched the NI-CheckApp: a compliance tool for suppliers of wild-collected natural ingredients that would save time and money by harmonising multiple certification documentation. Now that we’re one year further, what have we achieved? Documentation set is complete In the past year, we transformed the concept of the NI-CheckApp into reality. The tool now boasts a complete and integrated documentation set including the operator profile for wild collection for Organic, FairWild, Fair standards and GACP. Control bodies buy into the use of NI-CheckApp Control bodies such as Control Union and IMO/Ecocert are welcoming the use of the NI-CheckApp. [Read more]

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Sustainable collection standards for Pakistani pine nuts cheaper and easier with NI-CheckApp

2020-03-04T11:50:40+00:00December 22nd, 2017|Tags: , , , , , |

Hunza Organics, based in Northern Pakistan, has just passed its first inspection for FairWild certification, of wild-collected, organic pine nuts. We expect the certification decision to be made in January, which would make Hunza Organics the first company with multiple certified products in the pilot that CBI and ProFound designed for Northern Pakistan. We are proud that Hunza Organics used our total compliance tool, NI-CheckApp, to make the implementation of sustainable collection standards cheaper and easier. Our IN2NI colleague Michael Schwegler provided technical support throughout this process. In their final step towards the European market, Hunza Organics will exhibit their products at the BioFach trade [Read more]

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Successful agricultural clusters in Eastern Indonesia for the World Bank

2019-04-17T09:49:15+00:00November 24th, 2017|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |

ProFound developed strategies for innovative clusters of economic activity with key Eastern Indonesian agricultural products. In this project for the World Bank we worked together with our Indonesian partner Setara Foundation and several experts from Gadjah Mada University. The team identified three main agricultural product clusters and cluster locations: Chili, onions and garlic on East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) and West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) Fish on Maluku and Papua Coconut on North Sulawesi During field work in Indonesia, local and international experts identified value-adding and logistical strategies. Through product-market matching opportunities, the teams determined: Successful organisation and coordination between stakeholders How to [Read more]

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