New distribution centre in Huambo province, Angola
FPAL opened its new distribution centre in the province of Huambo (which was formerly known as New Lisbon), in Q1 of 2014 in order to cover the south-eastern towns of Angola.
Huambo is the 2nd biggest city in Angola, located about 600 KM SE of Luanda. It is the main hub on the Benguela Railway, which runs from the port of Lobito to the Democratic Republic of the Congo's southernmost province, Katanga.
FPAL needed to create a point-of-sale hub in Huambo in order to reduce the cost of distribution and make it more direct, help control local market prices, have a continuous product presence and have better market share. With the efforts of the team in Luanda giving help and training to the new team in Huambo, FPAL was able to achieve a turnover of 2.2 million USD in the first year of operation. The presence of our SKUs across the range has significantly increased in the region due to continuous efforts in the market and marketing.
We launched Yumvita in Q4 of 2014 in Huambo and with only a month of market activations it was a great success. The launch started off quite slowly, as cereals in a sachet format are a new concept in this region, but with continuous sampling and in-market tasting sessions the people started to understand the convenience and practicality of this format and sales started picking up as a consequence. Huambo has now become our biggest market for Yumvita outside of Luanda and with continued marketing support, we are confident we can continue to grow the volumes, of not only Yumvita, but the full range of our products in this region through 2015.