CASE STUDY
ZAMBIA
Scaling for Value Across Multiple Geographies and Product Categories
Background
Cassava as a crop offers significant opportunities in both the production of food products and beverages. It also serves to support food security in many African countries.
Challenge
Cassava, however, is not a highly commercialised crop with well-developed value chains into the retail sector. It also offers challenges when being processed for either food or beverage applications.
Opportunity
A solution was needed to use cassava in both a food product as well as a beverage. The solution also needed to be applied across multiple geographies to multiply value.
Approach
First, before considering supply chain specific solutions, we had to map the existing cassava value chains in the targeted geographies. Next, we needed to understand current applications in the food and beverage sectors.
After mapping, the first point of focus was improving quality and reliability of supply at point of production – through better suited varieties as well as farm production and post-harvest practices. In conjunction, alternative ways of processing cassava were trialed to improve the quality of both the food product and the beverage. In order to create a scalable multi-geography solution, the VCS Big Data platform was applied to analyse production and trade patterns along with market opportunities. Lastly, once all was trialed and firmed up, the solution was first implemented in a single country. Once stable, it was expanded successfully to neighbouring countries.
Outcome
THE FOLLOWING DIAGRAM DEPICTS THE PRODUCTION OF
CASSAVA FLOUR IN ZAMBIA
