Introducing Kosovo to the market

2016-11-01T16:28:03+00:00December 15th, 2015|Tags: , , , , , |

As a follow-up to the inception phase, ProFound has been actively involved in the implementation of Swisscontact-PPSE's interventions for Kosovo's food processing sector in 2015. At Anuga (Cologne, Germany), ProFound provided support to 12 Kosovar companies dealing with a wide range of products, from smoothies and energy drinks to preserved vegetables and mushrooms. ProFound's role at Anuga went beyond creating business linkages, also including capacity-building aspects to the exhibiting companies. Food Ingredients Europe (Paris, France) was directly aimed at the non-wood forest product sub-sector, and served as a solid basis to define the strengths and needs of Kosovo's companies. At [Read more]

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Training South African health ingredients companies

2016-11-01T16:28:08+00:00December 3rd, 2015|Tags: , , |

Effective export marketing requires planning: knowing how you are going to position yourself on the market and what that involves in terms of product development, distribution, pricing and promotion. This requires that you understand both your company and the market, and that you can connect the two. It also involves making choices on corporate social responsibility: what are the commitments your company wants to make and how should that be reflected in export marketing? Once this is done, companies need to make an action plan and consider which financial and human resources they need to put it into practice. IN2NI [Read more]

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Supporting South Africa’s National Conference

2016-11-01T16:28:08+00:00December 2nd, 2015|Tags: , |

The Department of Trade Industry in South Africa, with support from CBI and ProFound, organised the first National Conference on Natural Ingredients on the 17th and 18th of November in Pretoria. The conference brought together companies operating in the sector, including raw material producers, processors, exporters and final product manufacturers with representatives from the public sector and academia. In sessions with key speakers and panel discussions, the 180 participants discussed opportunities and actions at different levels of the value chain and looked at the business enabling environment. Together with CBI institutional development consultant Jim Tersteeg, ProFound consultant Robbie Hogervorst provided [Read more]

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ProFound supports Ethiopian pulse producers at Anuga

2016-11-01T16:28:08+00:00October 27th, 2015|Tags: , , , |

The ANUGA trade fair in Cologne, Germany provided an excellent opportunity for 3 Ethiopian farmer unions to meet with European companies. Previously, they only supplied products to the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange or Ethiopian companies. At ANUGA, they learned that European buyers are more demanding and require them to develop their business. ProFound and its partners SNV and Target are supporting the farmer unions with the necessary market knowledge, business planning and matchmaking. The study tour was part of the Cooperatives for Change (C4C) programme in Ethiopia. This programme aims to strengthen cooperatives and particularly the marketing of the farm products. [Read more]

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Non-Wood Forest Products in Kosovo

2016-10-11T12:38:31+00:00May 13th, 2015|Tags: , , , , |

ProFound has just concluded the first phase of the Market Assessment for the Non-Wood Forest Product (NWFP) sub-sector in Kosovo, consisting mainly of medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs), berries and mushrooms. This assessment has been commissioned by the Promoting Private Sector Employment (PPSE) programme, financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). In the course of two weeks, Gustavo Ferro cooperated closely with the PPSE team and Riinvest Institute in gathering primary data from processors of NWFPs, collection centres, collectors, international organisations and service providers in all corners of Kosovo. The market assessment team was also accompanied by gender analysts [Read more]

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Market orientation: EU health ingredients

2016-10-11T13:27:03+00:00May 12th, 2015|Tags: , , , |

Robbie Hogervorst and CBI health ingredient expert Klaus Dürbeck travelled to Vitafoods in the beginning of May for a Market Orientation mission with South African producers of natural ingredients. During this mission, companies verified their market entry strategy with classroom trainings. They met with potential buyers and came to a better understanding what they need to enter the EU market.  Not only did the trade fair show them potential customers, but also their competitors. Key in this work was to acquaint the companies with documentation: using company contact forms for effective decision making and follow up. Visiting retail outlets showed [Read more]

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Market Orientation at In-Cosmetics

2016-11-01T16:28:08+00:00April 28th, 2015|Tags: , , , |

At the In-Cosmetics trade fair in Barcelona, Robbie Hogervorst and CBI cosmetic ingredient export Andrew Jones organised a market orientation mission, to help SME exporters of natural ingredients get ready to export to Europe. Over 30 companies and business support organisations from South Africa and Latin America took part in this mission. The mission in Barcelona helped companies verify their market entry strategy. The companies met with potential buyers and came to a better understanding of what they need to enter the European market. What’s more, the trade fair introduced them to their competitors from Europe, as well as from [Read more]

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Facilitating the South African natural ingredients sector

2016-10-11T12:40:23+00:00April 2nd, 2015|Tags: , , , , |

South Africa has a great potential to become a leader in Natural Ingredients. Unfortunately, the business environment is not enabling the sector to take full advantage of the country´s position. For that reason, Robbie Hogervorst went to South Africa, together with CBI´s institutional expert Jim Tersteeg to visit stakeholders that could play a key role in improving a business enabling environment. During this mission, forward actions were discussed. South Africa has a sound foundation to develop and market high quality and innovative ingredients for the health, cosmetics and food sectors. This foundation is built on the country’s biodiversity, diversity in [Read more]

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Strategic Conferences in South Africa: Natural Ingredients

2016-10-11T12:41:02+00:00March 23rd, 2015|Tags: , |

ProFound conducted a series of regional conferences for CBI’s natural ingredients project to follow-up on earlier strategic conferences held in December 2014. The first conferences focused on export development; the second series of conferences took one step further by looking at export promotion, e.g. developing the right product for the right market, supported by the right promotion and marketing mix. Of course, research is vital to such efforts. As such, the conferences not only brought together companies and public sector officials from key departments at local and national level, but also brought in researchers from universities and research institutes with research programmes [Read more]

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Value chain development in South Africa

2016-10-11T12:44:32+00:00December 7th, 2014|Tags: , |

While South African natural ingredient producers can boast strong unique selling points, such as an incredible biodiversity, a strong entrepreneurial spirit and access to technical skills, South Africa plays a relatively modest role on the international market for ingredients. Robbie Hogervorst supports CBI with a programme of strategic conferences in 2014 and 2015 to counter some of the root causes: cooperation and association at all levels of the value chain. First in this series, a conference on export development needs was held in Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town, bringing stakeholders together at a regional level. During this conference, critical bottlenecks [Read more]

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