Haitian couple found nutty business idea in Tanzania
Entrepreneurs source product directly from farming families and co-operatives
“Bring back some precious stones or money,” Thamarah Mathurin told her partner, François Boisrond, when he left home in 2014 to set up an export venture in Africa.
However, the Haitian-born entrepreneur found the continent’s gemstone trade too precarious, unregulated, and too dangerous in some countries for business investment.
A disconsolate Boisrond returned empty-handed, save for a bag of Tanzanian cashew nuts.
“We were both depressed and I was in tears thinking about the time and money we’d invested,” Mathurin said. “We ate the nuts anyway and they turned out to be the best cashews I’d ever tasted. It gave us an idea and we forgot about gemstones.”
Impressed by the flavour, size and colour of the cashews, the couple decided to try selling them and set up Nuts Depot & Plus.
Boisrond spent the following year on the road, conducting market analysis, lining up potential customers, setting up supply chains and negotiating distribution contracts in Canada and abroad.
The effort paid off and the company cracked the market in Vietnam with a large order of raw cashews. But to enter North American and European markets, which prefer shelled nuts, the partners recently leased a processing plant just outside Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
“We aim to get the plant up and running in May, to start exports of processed cashews to western markets,” Mathurin said.
“We’re improving the plant’s warehouse and storage facilities with the aim of getting ISO 9001, FDA, HACCP and CFIA certifications. With extra supplies of nuts lined up in Ivory Coast and Senegal, our annual export target is 50,000 tonnes.”
To ensure the venture has maximum local benefit, the company buys its organic nuts directly from farming families and co-operatives.
Boisrond now spends increasingly more time in Tanzania developing the venture and has hired a local manager to look after the shop while the boss is back in Canada.
Nuts Depot & Plus recently moved its head office to Toronto from Montreal to be closer to large distributors and wholesale buyers such as supermarkets. However, Mathurin remains in Montreal looking after the books and Quebec inquiries.
The African venture represents a radical change for the couple, who met four years ago at a business conference organized by Montreal’s Haitian community.
“We’d both been focused on development projects in Haiti,” says Boisrond, a former industrial and architectural designer. “But sitting at the table, we discovered a shared interest in setting up a social enterprise in Africa — a continent we believe has much potential.”
“It was also time for both of us to try something else, and perhaps a subconscious desire to get back to the roots of our culture,” says Mathurin, a property manager whose parents emigrated from Haiti.
“I wanted to start a big enterprise and the freedom to work for myself,” says Boisrond. “But in a way, I’m also going back to my roots. Back in Haiti, my father, a surveyor and entrepreneur, exported rice and cacao beans, so I suppose I inherited that interest.”
Confident of success, Mathurin and Boisrond plan to branch out from nuts into real estate development by combining their professional backgrounds with capital generated by the import-export business.
However, the couple has found that starting a “big enterprise” in Africa is slow, expensive and frustrating.
For Boisrond, it has meant months of heat, dealing with a complex bureaucracy and long drives on rough roads.
“Business is done differently in Africa, you have to be patient,” he says. “Tanzanians are very warm and place great emphasis on personal relationships.”
“They like to sit down and talk over refreshments, even at the bank. The phone is the last option. You have to cross town and endure long traffic jams to attend a faceto-face meeting for a small matter that would take a five-minute call in Canada.”
“I’m more worried about François’s personal security in some countries,” Mathurin said. “Although he’s streetwise and knows how to avoid dangerous situations, he’s also a risk taker.”
“One client told him: ‘a cat has nine lives but you have 99.’”
Boisrond downplays the concerns.
“In Tanzania I can walk for miles and feel safe,” he said. “It’s common for the locals to withdraw millions of shillings from their bank in cash, put it in their backpack and walk away with no fear. It’s a cash and carry society.”
Whatever the risks, the couple have invested backpacks of their own cash in the company, as well as capital borrowed from a small group of supporters.
“We’ve made sacrifices along the way and some people have told me I’m crazy,” says Mathurin. “But when you believe in your vision, it doesn’t matter.”
“You could say we’ve gone nuts about Africa.”
We’ve made sacrifices along the way and some people have told me I’m crazy. But when you believe in your vision, it doesn’t matter.