COMACO walks the standards talk!
wto this weeks Let’s
Talk Standards.” Last week we spent some time looking at what standards are, how they can be applied and their importance in busi- ness. Today we focus our attention on the success story of one of Zambia’s SMEs’, the Community Market for Conservation (COMACO). The story of COMACO is one that is worth not- ing and possibly can provide us with practical experiences of how stan- dards help industry.
It’s wild! Yes “Its wild” brand prod- ucts locally manufactured in Zambia have proudly earned the right to share shelf space with internationally recog- nized brands in our large chain stores, supermarkets and retail shops. This was not so a few years ago but thank- fully, standards have helped create a level playing field where companies large and small can compete favor- ably. With a product range of peanut butter, honey, yummy soy (corn soya blend), poultry feeds, dried mangoes, rice, dried vegetables and spices, COMACO has become one of the biggest processing and value adding companies of locally grown agricul- tural products. It is gratifying to see how companies such as COMACO through the use of Standards have ex- celled in their business processes. We spent some time with Mr. David Sakala, the Quality Assurance Manag- er at COMACO who shared what their experience has been, from the time they started implementing standards. • ‘From the onset, the company has always aimed to produce healthy and safe foods for the communities. It was realized that this goal would only be achieved if standards were implemented. To achieve this, we embarked on the journey to imple- ment food safety standards. ZABS assisted us to achieve this by means of quality audits that guided us on the improvements that we needed.’ • ‘In 2013 we implemented the Good manufacturing practices (GMPs) and the Good hygiene practices (GHPs). By 2015, this helped us to put in place systems for good food hygiene which led to the cer- tification of some of the production lines by ZABS. A total of three of our products have been certified by ZABS hence these products bear the Product Certification mark of quality.’
COMACO have been able to attest of how their products have gained cus- tomer confidence which has led to increased market share. The increased demand for “It`s Wild” products has enabled the company to increase the number of farmers supplying raw materials thereby helping COMACO fulfil its conservation agenda. From a customers’ perspective, complaints have reduced to a bare minimum due to the improved quality of the prod- ucts. The company has demonstrated that they can consistently produce to customer expectations. • ‘Implementing the product certi- fication for us meant reevaluating our production process and hence helped us to improve the efficiency and reduce down time. Having the systems in place has enabled us to win lucrative tenders for supplying to international organizations such as the World Food Programme and Thrive and school feeding pro- grammes under the USAID funded projects. We have also realized that standards will play an important role in our quest to export our val- ue added products.’
The story of COMACO dear readers gives us the impetus to continue pro- moting the relevance of standards to industry, what every manufacturer needs in order to be competitive is the rigorous quality assurance systems that ensures continued product im- provement. As ZABS, we are ready to partner with you, no matter how small or big your organization may be, to help you realize the benefits of imple- menting standards and certification. We would want to hear from you as a manufacturer on how best we can help put in place quality systems so, do send us your comments and ques- tions on this and any other standards and quality assurance issues.