Banjul Breweries started production in 1977. You are specialized in the production Jul brew beer, Guinness and soft drinks. But for our reader, can describe the various stages of your development and describe the variety of drinks that you produce?
Banjul Breweries when it came to the Gambia had a tough road home because it was a brewery in a predominately Muslim country and it was again predominately for the tourist industry ant not so much for local consumption. The brewery had some little difficulties at the start because of this and most breweries in small countries have to struggle for the first couple of years, trying to set up to work properly and Banjul Brewery got a little bit of kicking, in the 80's when part of the brewery was burnt down during a coup, economical decline and then again as it started to raise its head above waters there was the coup in 94. Since 94 the previous General Manager to myself put the company on a strong financial base. He was predominately an accountant and put some steal into the finances of the company. I am a commercial person, I have a degree in Business Administration, majoring in marketing. I came here some 18 months ago and the strategy of our company has always been similar: they put a finance guy to strengthen the finance, then a marketing guy to keep the sales up and then another finance guy into a period of stabilization and so on. This is what we have done and we achieved a record profit last year and we will have another record profit this year. The brewery is going from strength to strength and it has been a good investment to shareholder, the employees and the country. As far as volumes are concerned, this year we are looking close to 50,000 hectoliters. In the last 12 months we had a 30% increase in sales volume.
Your business depends essentially on the tourism sector which has been declining for the past few years. Has this phenomenon had an impact on your activity level?
For the last couple of years we have had an extra technical manager, he has improved the quality of our product dramatically. We won a Guinness award in Africa, we went from number 24 to number 3 and we are now number 7 in the world. In the quality of GFE (Guinness Foreign Extract) we are trying to get to number 1, which is very difficult. Malaysia, I think is number 1 but I think we are number 2, in Africa I am waiting for last year's figures, we will be at worst number 3, I will have to say that for a country with a population not as educated as in the more developed country that it is an achievement.
Can you describe briefly what are the other brands that you manufacture?
Guinness and Vimto are corporate brand that we manufacture under license. Vimto is a very strong English brand, it is number 2 here. We manufacture Soda and Tonic water, Mango, Cocktail de Fruit, Bitter Lemon, Malta (which is a very strong seller), we rebottle wine from Spain and we hopefully, next year, we will embark on Vita malt and this is a product we hope to export into neighboring countries.
The competition is fierce on the national market, especially with the presence of international brands. So, in your opinion, what really differentiates Banjul Breweries from other beverage companies and which areas should require some improvement?
We increased our market dramatically. When we have a tourist industry that is declining and we have a 16% increase in our beer volumes, it means that we really got into them. However, there are some problems with imported beer not paying the correct duties which the department of customs, through the Department of Finance, is currently is trying to rectify for us. If that comes to pass, for which I have confidence, it will further increase our market. We have got a good quality product and like any imported product compared to a local product, you must understand that it is not something that travels remarkably well. What you have is a product that has to have stabilizers and extenders in it, it has also been shipped, loaded in containers and different things like that. There is also a problem of date, the product has to a month old or two when it arrives here, whilst ours is a day or two old when it leaves the brewery, so as long as you have a good quality product automatically your local product wherever it is in the world should be better than the imported product. Unfortunately, all the time I have been in the industry, there has always been an idea that imported products are better than local products, which is just not true. The local product is a good product in other words Heineken and Becks are fantastic in Holland and Germany, but not as good in any other country. We have done a lot to our marketing and distribution, we are very aggressive in our marketing and distribution and we continue to do so, this is why we have kicked up dramatically in our sales.
It seems however that tourists tend to make the most of their "Gambian experience" by drinking local beer and that local people tend to drink foreign beer as a social distinction, isn't it?
You are 100 percent correct, most of the foreign beers that come in this country are drunk not by tourists but by rich Gambian with the idea that they earn more money than the other people, therefore they can afford the expensive product and this is the same all over Africa. But because our product is very good we are winning more and more of the local market as well. The fear I have is that because the tourism is being estimated between 25% and 30% reduction, this is going to take the cream off my beer sales but soft drink sales will not be affected at all. My soft drink sales are more local. This is the first country I haven't been a Coca-Cola bottler and being a Coca-Cola bottler I know that when someone goes to Europe they would be interested in a Coke, Sprite or Fanta more than Vimto, Malta or Cocktail de Fruit which they haven't heard of, so our soft drink market is local.
Many companies feel they have a corporate social responsibility towards the Gambian community. To what extent do you feel involved in the improvement of Gambians'life?
We are a major sponsor of the Roots Home Coming Festival and we are working with Coca-Cola in helping the Ground Operators with free drinks on their upcoming fate. We are in constant contact with Mr. Touray (Minister of Tourism), we are involved in helping different committees and we have donated funds to President Jammeh to fix the roads. We are very much involved in that kind of thing.
| What do you think about the revitalization program launched by the Ministry of Tourism to boost the tourism industry?
SOS Touray is certainly making the right noise. The noise he is making and the action he has appeared to put into place is most certainly something in the right direction which has been lacking and I commend him for that, I believe it is late but better late than never. Gambia has as its greatest asset the people, the Gambian people are some of the nicest people you can meet. I come from the Carribeans and they are supposed to be the tourists' heaven but there is no comparison between the service made by the people within the tourist trade and The Gambia. This is the greatest asset they have; they have a little bit of groundnut and very small industries. We are a big business here but outside, in comparison with companies like Bud Wiser, we are small.
High level of Human resources capacities seems to be one of your main focuses. What is policy to effectively update the qualification of your staff?
I have 120 Gambians, 2 expatriates, my technical manager and myself. I inherited some 27 illiterate people in an industry, which is a hi-Tec industry, last year I organized a six month literacy course for my illiterate employees which was sponsored by the brewery, we taught them how to read and write. Now we don't have any illiterate employee, all of them can read and write, and I am extremely proud that there are 27 Gambian that can read and write thanks to me. We now have an entrance requirement that you must be a high school level even if you want a job as a sweeper. One of the weakest areas I had problems with when I came here was human resources, I have employed a Gambian lady who has a master degree in Human Resources and she is our human resources manager. We have now established all job specifications and requirements, company planning, company profile, etc.... We have raised the quality of our workers and we are the only company in the Gambia that has a collective agreement signed by the workers committee and ourselves to state salary conditions plus penalties. We did this with the full knowledge and cooperation of the ministry of Labor who ratify the agreement with our workers to make sure we are in line with the law of the Gambia. We now have our budget for training which we didn't have before mainly because of financial constraints. We believe our most expensive asset is our people, machines come and go but people are what we want. We give our employees 4% of the profit of this company as performance bonus, we also offer our employees to buy part of this business and we are selling 750,000 shares to about 35 employees. There are more that want shares desperately but due to the socio-economic situation of the country and it is more important for them to have a house than a share in a company. Some 35 employees, senior management down to junior staff have taken now between 20 and 1200 shares within the company.
What is your capital structure?
We have about 3% of the company that is owned by the Department of Finance and Assets Management and Recovery Cooperation (AMRC) of the goverment, 1% by employees and the rest by overseas investors. Danish Brwery Group, Denmark owns 35% and Brauhaase International Management owns the rest, about 61%. We tried very hard to get Gambians to buy shares up to 20% in the company because it is important to give back to the Gambia, unfortunately they turned it down, they are more interested in Trust bank and different places. We got some Gambians but we would like to have more and we are more interested in selling to local Gambians.
In the last 12 months we have invested 16 million Dalasis in capital expenditure, I don't know if any other company spends that much and we have over the next five year a policy of an excessive 12 million Dalasis per year that we will be used for capital expenditure. Basically we have a 10% dividend policy which may change and go up. This is our home, we are not here for a short time, we can't pick this brewery and take it for someone else.
Banjul Brewery is one example of private foreign investment in the Gambia. What would you suggest to the Government in order to boost the FDI in the country?
I would like to see the government having a manufacturing policy, I haven't seen a strategic plan for investment within the Gambia. The Gambia doesn't need a high-Tech company that is going to employ 3 or 4 people, you want a mass industry that will employ 3 or 4 thousand people and paying them well. Due to the extended families if you employ a thousand people in actual fact you are helping five to ten thousand people. I knew President Jammeh when I just came to this country, I was told about his vision 2020 and he is saying he wants to make Gambia the Singapore of West Africa. I think that is a most commendable vision, I hope for his sake and the country's sake it becomes true. The opportunity is there because the people are not aggressive people and they are isolated in a small geographical area so there is a possibility. But they have to get their roads, Power Supply, Water supply and their school system sorted out, it is coming but not yet there.
You are today General Manager of Banjul Breweries, so can you enlighten us on your professional background?
I have worked as General Manager in Papua New Guinea, Singapore, Solomon Island, St. Vincent and now here, I also had to travel to many countries. Basically I am an administrator specialized in marketing, I like to consider myself as a sales man.
My transfer from St. Vincent brought me to the Gambia. I was born in India, I had my secondary and tertiary education in Australia and left Australia in 1988 to become a professional gypsy.
How long to you intend to stay in The Gambia?
I don't know, but normally my assignments are three years, my wife and I quite like it here, the people are more friendly here.
What would be you greatest challenges in the near future?
To make us the only beverage suppliers in The Gambia in other words no important beer, no Coca-Cola. The first month I was here the soft drink sales went up 25% we took 5% market shares off Coca-Cola only, which is quite an accomplishment but they went up 20% because of that the market expanded. We have to continue our distribution; distribution here is low because of the road and the isolation of villages. The growth is not in the greater Banjul areas. |
BANJUL BREWERIES LTD.