Over the summer period of 2020 The Group of Companies “Resource” exported 2.7 thousand tons of poultry meat to African countries, and by the end of the year it expects to increase shipments to 10 thousand tons per year, unless there won’t be any serious downturns due to coronavirus pandemic. Alexander Stoklitskiy, Export director or Resource-South (a member of The Resource Group), told Agoinvestor about this.
Every year African countries import almost 2 million tons of chicken meat. High demand and annual population growth, which exceeds 1 billion people, makes this market very interesting for the company, says the top manager. “At the very beginning of its export operations in 2012, the company was already shipping to Liberia and Equatorial Guinea. The cooperation turned out to be successful, but for a number of reasons it was suspended for some time, - he says. – This year, export to Africa was restarted on massive scale. Before resuming the shipments, “Resource” specialists conducted a market research, which confirmed that now our products can be more competitive.”
Each region has its own characteristics and preferences in terms of commodity items, and African countries are no exception, Stoklitskiy continues. Historically, unbranded cuts of chicken meat predominates in the orders of the clients from the continent, but there is also an interest in branded products, primarily grillers. “We are currently working on the matter of supplying the brand to a number of distributors with whom we previously cooperated in Egypt, Tanzania and the Seychelles,” he clarifies.
The company has also completed sufficient scope of work on the approval of specifications and adaptation of packaging to meet the requirements of African partners. There is a multi-stage logistics system on the continent, the goods are repeatedly loaded onto various vehicles, and packaging must withstand challenging transportation. Especially so called "last mile logistics" in Africa may be challenging for the packaging of goods.
Logistics to Africa for domestic exporters of poultry meat Stoklitsky calls a sensitive issue. “Such competitors of Russia as Brazil and Europe are initially in a better position, - he says. – If a system has already been built in Asia that allows to optimize costs in such a way as to maintain competitive prices, there are still many difficulties with Africa.” On one hand, we do not have many opportunities to increase the volume of shipments due to high rates, on the other hand, rates do not decrease because the flow is still small, the top manager notes. In his opinion, the introduction of subsidies for maritime transport can break the vicious circle. “Resource” interacts with the government agencies to resolve the issue.
Agreements on the supply of “Resource” products to a number of African countries were reached during Gulfood-2020 exhibition in Dubai. During the summer, the company’s experts, with the support of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rosselkhoznadzor, carried out work on certification of plants and distribution centers for the approvals of shipping poultry meat to Angola, Benin, Ghana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone and other African countries.
The Group of Companies “Resource” is the country’s second producer of broiler meat, last year it produced 645 thousand tons. Since 2012, the holding has also been a leader among Russian exporters of poultry meat. In 2019, it delivered 86 thousand tons of products for overseas markets – more than 40% of all Russian exports of poultry meat. The company’s business development strategy targets increase in export sales to 125 thousand tons by 2021.
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