The Business Year Special Report
Vasco Masías Málaga, President, Grupo Alimenta
Grupo Alimenta, backed by technology, worked to support business during the COVID-19 pandemic with innovative solutions to help keep people connected.
How did the disruption of global supply chains impact your work in Peru, and how did you overcome the challenges?
The pandemic came out of the blue. We received a clear message from the pandemic that we need to work together; it is a systemic solution. We started by working with whatever we had at hand, because the suppliers were not reaching us with products and inventory. We developed an immune booster by mixing microalgae, vitamins, and flavorings. The message for everyone was let’s not panic, but do something productive. Most bakeries were closed because they were not prepared and did not have sufficient delivery systems. We invested in a delivery system for them and developed tortasparallevar. com (deliveringcakes.com). All of a sudden, thousands of stores were making deliveries and connecting with their customers. Building those connections was much more important than simply running our isolated business.
Is creating a website for bakeries part of the trend of using digital technologies to help people access your products and services?
Yes, though I would not direct attention only to technology. Technology is a platform that allows connections to happen. We use platforms and digitalization, but the force behind it is what matters. It is understanding that in order for me to be well, I need you to be well, and that to some extent is new for many people. We needed to make sure our customers and suppliers are well. One thing that we changed last year, for example, was reducing the payment terms for smaller suppliers. This did not affect our cash flow significantly, but it truly helped the ecosystem of smaller suppliers.
How has that connectivity translated to promoting the need to be sustainable?
I have been having discussions about sustainability for the better part of the last 20 years. People saw sustainability as something similar to corporate social responsibility or something we had to do to be well known or something like that. However, we have been building all our businesses based on trying to resolve issues in the global food system. The food system we use today was developed in the 1950s to solve one issue, which was the need for more calories. It solves that problem but did not address the whole system. What we have been doing in Alimenta is seeing things in a more systemic way, copying what nature developed over millions of years, like our organic fertilizers or the way in which we use the circular economy to develop nutritional food. This approach of biomimicry has received interest from people, and we seemed to have been helped by the right people, banks, and even regulatory offices. Profits are important to be sustainable, but when we are thinking beyond profits, everyone seems to want to help.
How do you organize yourself and Alimenta across Latin America?
We have been mainly working in Peru for the last 25 years, developing different solutions. We started operations in Chile and Colombia perhaps five or six years ago, and this is where we learned that locality is important. Now, we have felt the calling of the world and are in discussions with several impact funds, mainly from the UK. We are gaining the strength to start operations in different locations, both for organic fertilizers and nutritional products. We are not a global company in any way; we are focused on Latin America, but are now in the process of discussing starting operations in several countries, including the UK.
What are Alimentas’ priorities and goals for this year?
We are raising some impact capital, connecting with strategic partners, and focusing on those countries in which we can have a larger impact. This is India and Africa for regenerative agriculture and possibly Indonesia, the US, and the UK for nutritional products. The plans this year are to prepare for the world. Technology will solve all the problems in the world, though it will be balanced out with respect for nature and each other and a systemic view and the understanding that we are just part of the whole system.