Partners in Food Solutions
With the uncertainty of two years of a global pandemic, growing inflation, and war in a region of the world that is critical to supplying much of the food, fertilizer, and fuel that Africa needs, assisting local food production across the continent has never been more urgent. Partners in Food Solutions has been at the forefront of connecting local food entrepreneurs with experts from large food industry companies to increase food security in 12 African countries – one project at a time.
Nikki See, Director Communications, PFS
According to the International Monetary Fund, staple food prices in sub-Saharan Africa surged by an average of 23.9 percent in 2020-2022. The African Development Bank says Africa spends USD 75 billion each year to import more than 100 million tonnes of food, pinching household budgets and keeping Africa especially vulnerable to larger shocks in the global food system.
Local processing can go a long way to both lessen dependence on imports and strengthen local food value chains, creating jobs, responding to local needs, and bringing African countries online as a net food exporter. For the past 10 years, Bühler has been part of a novel, business-to-business approach to improving African food processing as a member of Partners in Food Solutions (PFS). A consortium of seven international food industry companies also including Cargill, General Mills and dsm-firmenich, PFS connects their employees to entrepreneurial food companies in 12 African countries to virtually share technical and business expertise on specific projects, through ask-an-expert engagements, mentoring, and more. It’s a way Bühler employees can personally engage and use their expertise to improve food security in Africa.
Helping in that effort is Michael Gothe. He has been a Sales Engineer with Bühler for nearly 25 years. His equipment expertise, combined with many years of working in Africa, are exactly what PFS client companies need to solve challenges that are barriers to their growth.
Since 2021, Gothe has supported five PFS projects, including two with COMACO. The company’s name is an acronym for Community Markets for Conservation and it’s a unique type of business that is having an outsized economic and environmental impact in the rural regions of Zambia, where it is based. The company incentivizes farmers to adopt land and wildlife conservation practices by agreeing to buy their crops. In exchange, COMACO provides a stable income source. With more than 230,000 farmer families in its supply chain, COMACO produces value-added, organic products for sale to urban populations. Their brand “It’s Wild!” produces rice, honey, peanut butter, and a nutritious cereal called “Yummy Soy”.
COMACO needed advice on how to improve their rice processing to achieve over 80 percent extraction of grade A (full grain) polished rice from paddy rice. “PFS and its volunteers are important to us to ensure we learn what we don’t know and match this with local knowledge to develop the most efficient and effective company which can support our goals for environmental and farmer impact,” says Stuart Hall, COO of COMACO. Gothe’s rice mill experience was the expertise they were looking for to move forward.
For several months, Gothe worked with COMACO to troubleshoot their rice processing and identify solutions that would help them achieve their goal of 80 percent extraction of grade A polished rice.
“I learned that COMACO received their rice from many different farmers in the area and that the conditions in which the rice is grown are important. If some fields did not have enough water, the rice gets chalky and will break when it is processed in the mill. Another aspect of this project was to help explain the basics of rice milling itself,” he says.
“We have learned a lot from Michael,” says Hall. “It is not only our processing that can cause problems with rice breakages, but also what happens in the growing cycle and storage of rice that influences
this. We always enjoy every part of our interaction with PFS and with their help we continue to learn and develop our company so we can be better.”
For Gothe, seeing that improvement is what has him coming back to volunteering again and again. “My favorite part of volunteering with PFS is sharing my knowledge with other people, helping them develop independence, and leading them to a positive future,” he says.
My favorite part of volunteering is sharing my knowledge, helping people develop independence, and leading them to a positive future.
Michael Gothe, Sales Engineer at Bühler Braunschweig
One of the most critical elements in sustainable food security is providing livelihoods for the rapidly growing and urbanizing population in Africa. Its current population of 1.2 billion, 60 percent of whom are under 25, is expected to double by 2050. By 2030, young Africans are expected to constitute 42 percent of global youth, according to the Population Reference Bureau in Washington, DC, US.
Those staggering numbers show the urgency of not only ensuring adequate food supply, but also sufficient jobs for the burgeoning population. Creating those jobs in the food sector will have a knock-on effect of more available food. Investment in training the next generation of African food professionals and workers is critical. Having strong, local food businesses in place to absorb the growing workforce needs to begin now.
PFS is already working to capture this opportunity by creating volunteer-supported, human capital focused services such as mentoring and apprenticeships. The PFS apprenticeship program places recent graduates with PFS client companies to help them gain hands-on experience in the food industry and also add capacity for the small food businesses it supports. PFS cost shares with the client 50-50 for the one-year apprenticeship. Some 41 percent of apprentices are subsequently hired by the client, and another 37 percent were hired by other local food processing companies.
One important element of the apprenticeship program’s success is that each apprentice is connected with a mentor from one of the seven partner companies. The mentor provides advice, support, and coaching throughout the year, along with exposure to the global food processing industry. Apprentices cite these relationships as among the most important learning opportunities they have ever had. Mentors say they also have gained new insights and a sense of purpose, that they are truly making a difference for new professionals in a field of work that they love. In addition to apprentice mentorships, PFS also connects leaders from corporate partner companies with leaders of African client companies. These relationships have a very special quality, as the demands of leadership offer their own type of challenges and opportunities.
Through PFS, companies like Bühler can sustainably invest in upskilling and equipping the next generation of small businesses in emerging markets, and in particular, food processing companies, which will play a critical role in Africa’s future economic growth. According to the World Bank, processed foods are forecast to make up 73 percent of African diets by 2040 yet the continent continues to import billions of dollars’ worth of food to meet demand.
“When companies like Bühler make the commitment to unlock and invest their wealth of expertise in the people and food businesses of Africa, we see a sustainable and scalable way forward in improving food security for all,” says PFS Co-founder and CEO Jeff Dykstra.
When companies like Bühler make the commitment to unlock and invest their wealth of expertise in the people and food businesses of Africa, we see a sustainable and scalable way forward in improving food security for all.
Jeff Dykstra, CEO and Co-Founder of PFS
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