WHAT A CRACKER!
KZN women win massive Walmart order
● The festive season is continuing with a bang for a family-owned company in KwaZulu-Natal, Glenart, which this week won the chance to export its Christmas crackers to Walmart in the US.
Glenart’s “Crackertoa”, which Walmart plans to stock in 800 of its US stores, is a combination of a Christmas cracker and party popper that ejects confetti when pulled.
Glenart MD Miles Rasmussen says he is “reeling with the possibilities and opportunities” after meeting Walmart executives who were on a product-scouting trip to SA.
Walmart, as is its normal practice, placed a trial order with Glenart. If after the first year sales are good and Rasmussen’s company proves to be a reliable supplier, things start ramping up in the second year. “
We foresee this year as a test and a trial. There’s a lot riding on this,” says Rasmussen.
While the US will be the primary market, there are likely to be opportunities in the UK through Asda, and possibly in Walmart Canada and Walmart Japan.
“An opportunity like this, if it works out, has the potential to affect employment in the area, it’s such a labourintensive business,” Rasmussen says.
Glenart might take on up to an additional 250 staff if the Walmart deal works out.
The Christmas cracker operation is seasonal — Glenart starts production in June to supply stock by mid-October. At the moment it employs 200 women for about five months of the year.
The Glenart team can turn out 60,000 crackers a day and the company recently built a new 3,000m² office and manufacturing facility at Shaka’s Head, on the north coast near Ballito. It is close to the local township for ease of access and to reduce travel expenses for staff.
When Rasmussen’s father, Rowan Rasmussen, started the business in 1994 it was focused on all things Christmas, from lights to wrapping paper, decorations and Christmas crackers. But after being let down by an international supplier and seeing the poor quality of crackers coming into the country, Rowan decided to manufacture his own crackers.
Today, Christmas crackers comprise about 90% of the business. They are priced from R50 for a box of six up to R400 for gin crackers, which each contain a 50ml bottle of award-winning Copper Republic gin.
The Walmart sourcing executives assessed other local products with potential global appeal. Companies on their radar included AVI — for Freshpak rooibos tea — Rhodes Food, Distell, I&J and Mpumalanga macadamia growers Green Farms.
Glenart is one of 23 small manufacturers that are part of the Massmart supplier development programme, which was launched after Walmart purchased 51% of Massmart in 2011 and which aims to provide opportunities for small, local manufacturers. In 2013 Bayede, a wine supplier on the development programme, signed a deal to export to Walmart China. Umlilo Charcoal, a charcoal and briquette manufacturer based in the North West, began exporting to Walmart Chile in 2018.
Glenart is also part of a new export programme that Massmart is running alongside the supplier development programme.
The new programme stems from discussions in 2018 at the World Economic Forum in Davos between the minister of trade & industry, Ebrahim Patel (who was then minister of economic development), and the president and CEO of Walmart International, Judith McKenna.
Massmart says the programme represents an extension of the supplier development mandate and is aimed at assisting local suppliers to access Walmart’s global markets.
Some products from fairly large local companies have been exported to Walmart stores, such as wine to Walmart China, fresh fruit to Asda in the UK and seafood to other parts of the network.
But Glenart’s Christmas cracker marks the first time a product from the supplier development programme has broken into Walmart’s US market. The Massmart programme has invested more than R200m in developing small local manufacturers, and last year R1bn worth of products were procured from those on its roster.
The first retailer that Glenart sold its products through when it launched in the 1990s was Makro, and today it supplies most major local retailers.
The Massmart programme enabled Glenart to install technology and tools that speeded up production and helped it to dramatically boost exports.
Rasmussen says his father retired about six years ago but still pops in, and that his wife works in the business. “It’s still a family business.”
‘We foresee this year as a test and a trial. There’s a lot riding on this’