MINNEAPOLIS (July 2020) – Partners in Food Solutions, a consortium of world-class food industry companies – General Mills, Cargill, Bühler, DSM, The Hershey Company and Ardent Mills – working together to address food security, nutrition and economic development across Africa has announced that The J. M. Smucker Company has become the organization’s newest corporate partner. For over a decade, Partners in Food Solutions has connected highly skilled volunteers from its corporate partners with entrepreneurial food companies in Africa to help strengthen their businesses. Volunteers have contributed more than 100,000 pro-bono consulting hours. With the addition of Smucker, Partners in Food Solutions partner companies represent over 800 years of food industry knowledge and experience. 

As the population of Africa is expected to double by 2050, ensuring communities have access to an adequate supply of safe, nutritious and affordable food is more important than ever. Through a remote, virtual consulting model, pioneered by Partners in Food Solutions and recognized by political and development leaders around the world, volunteers from Smucker will have the opportunity to support African food businesses by sharing their technical and business expertise. 

The partnership is the latest example of how the Company brings its commitment to thrive together with all of those impacted by its business to life. 

“As a food Company, we are passionate about ensuring global food security and are thrilled to support Partners in Food Solutions and its groundbreaking efforts to aid African communities in this area,” said Tamara Fynan, Executive Director, Community Engagement and Philanthropy, The J. M. Smucker Company. “The unique opportunity to engage our employees and leverage their technical and business expertise to make a meaningful impact is especially exciting. Our employees share in our passion to make a positive difference in the world and will be eager to lend their support to this great cause.” 

The timing of this new partnership could not be more appropriate. “The J.M. Smucker Company is a trusted food producer with a talented workforce who are committed to doing good in the world. They bring new expertise and capacity that will help us go even further in supporting a critical link in the African food value chain - local processors - to improve food security across the continent,” said Partners in Food Solutions CEO Jeff Dykstra. “COVID-19 has the potential to have a long-term impact on Africa's food system in ways that are unimaginable. Our volunteers are helping our clients address current challenges so they can become stronger and more resilient. The J.M. Smucker Company has a long history of creating successful brands and being able to utilize their expertise and experience will be invaluable for many of our clients right now.” 

Partners in Food Solutions has a network of more than 1,200 expert volunteers who have shared their technical and business knowledge with over 1,500 clients. With the addition of Smucker, Partners in Food Solutions will be able to tap into its 7,000+ employees and provide even greater support to its African clients. 

About Partners in Food Solutions Partners in Food Solutions, an independent nonprofit organization, works to increase the growth and competitiveness of food companies in Africa and beyond. Our goal is to improve access to safe, nutritious, affordable food and promote sustainable economic development across food value chains. We do this by inspiring business leaders and linking highly skilled corporate volunteers from our consortium of leading companies with promising entrepreneurs and other influencers of the food ecosystem. To learn more about Partners in Food Solutions, please visit partnersinfoodsolutions.com. 

About The J. M. Smucker Company Inspired by more than 120 years of business success and five generations of family leadership, The J. M. Smucker Company makes food that people and pets love. The Company's portfolio of 40+ brands, which are found in 90 percent of U.S. homes and countless restaurants, include iconic products consumers have always loved such as Folgers®, Jif® and Milk-Bone® plus new favorites like Café Bustelo®, Smucker's® Uncrustables® and Rachael Ray® Nutrish®. Over the past two decades, the Company has grown rapidly by thoughtfully acquiring leading and emerging brands, while ensuring the business has a positive impact on its 7,000+ employees, the communities it is a part of and the planet. For more information about The J. M. Smucker Company, visit jmsmucker.com. 

Yu “Chloe” Jiang, who was born and raised in China, has always been interested in food safety, even from an early age. “I remember as a young child learning about food safety scandals that occurred around the globe and being shocked by the people and companies that allowed them to happen,” Chloe said. “Honesty and honor are a couple of my core values and I am proud to work for a company that creates ingredients with integrity and lives out its values of serving people and trust.”

As a manager in the baking lab at Ardent Mills, Chloe is responsible for ensuring raw materials such as flour meets company and food safety standards. Chloe’s unique combination of technical food safety knowledge and ability to speak both Mandarin and English made her the perfect volunteer to help Barri Food Complex, a client that is supported by the partnership between TechnoServe, USAID, and PFS, translate equipment manuals for their grain processing plant in Ethiopia.

“Before Chloe, we were just troubleshooting the equipment. We didn’t have any [equipment] procedures in place,” said Anteneh Tesfaye, managing director of Barri Food Complex. “We could not find someone in our area who was able to translate our equipment manuals who also had a technical background,” Anteneh said, “having Chloe help translate our equipment manuals for us was very useful.” Now that the manuals have been translated to English, Barri Food Complex staff are able to use the equipment well and develop procedures that meet their local food safety standards.

Chloe explained that translating manuals for a grain processing plant in Ethiopia didn’t come without some unique challenges. “The type of maize flour in Ethiopia is very different from its counterpart in North America. I found that the term for cornmeal is not well defined in the US and the difference between corn flour and cornmeal can sometimes be confusing. When Barri Food Complex sent me a sample of their corn flour I noticed that it’s very fine and looks like the refined wheat flour you would find in the US. Through this experience, I learned not to assume anything. Especially when dealing with a food product from a different region and culture.”

For many volunteers, Partners in Food Solutions is an opportunity to learn new things – both professionally and personally. Chloe said, “Joining PFS was an opportunity that allowed me to use my technical knowledge to positively impact food safety and quality around the world. Not only did this experience enrich my knowledge about food, but it also taught me about food application and processing at the manufacturer.”

Whether you’re looking to network, develop new skills, or learn about a new culture, mentorships are a great way to connect with others and grow as an individual. The power of mentorships is that they often impact both sides – the mentor and the mentee – leading to a very fulfilling experience for everyone. Caio Malufe, a senior manager in corporate development at Cargill, recently joined the Partners in Food Solutions (PFS) mentoring program and was paired with Beatrice Githinji, the access to finance manager at Initiative for Smallholder Finance Advisors (ISF).

At ISF, Beatrice is responsible for assisting clients in the Alliance for Inclusive and Nutritious Food Processing (AINFP) program, supported by TechnoServe and USAID, acquire capital so they can fund projects related to improving nutrition. “My drive is to create a positive impact in the agriculture sector by improving access to finance for value-chain players,” Beatrice said. “The agricultural sector across the region is very heavily underfunded.” In her free time, Beatrice is a mentor herself. She mentors school children in her rural village to help improve their school performance and use education as a means to fight poverty. “I joined the PFS mentoring program because I want to redefine my career path, improve on other life skills, and learn about other cultures,” she said.

Caio, who joined the PFS volunteer network less than a year ago, has already participated in four projects and now his first mentorship. “I believe that the food and agriculture industry is one of the key catalyzers of impact in the world, and working toward a more equal and sustainable planet is the most powerful thing we can do,” Caio said. “I see Beatrice as someone who is supporting the financing of small and mid-sized entrepreneurs in vulnerable regions of Africa, and this is something dearly important to me. If she can leverage the conversations we have and the capabilities we discuss as a means of doing the job better, that’s what motivates me.”

Although Caio and Beatrice’s mentorship recently started, both of them have already reported learning something new. Caio said, “Our sessions so far have covered topics such as inner exploration, knowing oneself, communications strategy, and how to influence a team, which are all important themes for the work both of us are doing.” “Caio is a good mentor,” Beatrice said, “he has taken the time to understand why I am in this program and then guided the process, creating an amicable environment for the sessions. One of the critical things I have learned is the essence of being conscious and present in whatever I am doing. This has helped me a great deal in engaging with others.”

Beatrice and Caio plan to keep on meeting regularly throughout the year and continue conversations about communication strategies, purpose, professional development, and more. “I am inspired by Beatrice’s sense of purpose, and by the reasons behind her goals and ambitions in life... I do have the feeling that I am the one doing most of the learning at times.”

Sopa Supplies, a milling company based in Kenya, recently added a new processing facility to increase its production capacity and sales. Due to low market penetration and distribution, Sopa Supplies was not getting enough orders to utilize their new facility and reach full production capacity. That’s when they realized they needed assistance in developing a marketing strategy that aligned with their updated business plan. Mukul Aggarwal, a corporate strategist at Cargill, was looking for an opportunity to use his knowledge and business skills to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) when he discovered the PFS volunteer opportunity with Sopa Supplies. “I chose to volunteer on the marketing strategy project because SMEs are typically resource and cash-constrained in emerging nations and I wanted to help them achieve their business goals and make a meaningful impact,” Mukul said. “Moreover, Sopa Supplies is headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, and I wanted to learn more about the country and continent given its growing prominence in the food industry.”

One of the most interesting things Mukul learned while working with Sopa Supplies was that the challenges the company faced were analogous to the challenges most other food and agricultural companies, like Cargill, experience. “Obstacles such as increasing market share, improving/maintaining food quality, and remaining price competitive transcend geographies or the size of an organization,” he said. On the other hand, there was a lot more emphasis on the short- term (0-2 years) strategy for Sopa Supplies. Typically, at Cargill, we take a long-term (5+ year) view and look at the changes that are expected to unfold in the future to determine the best positioning for sustainable growth. With that shorter-term timing in mind, some of the areas we focused on were creating a website, changing pricing strategy, and hiring the right sales talent.”

Pauline Njeri, managing director of Sopa Supplies, worked with Mukul and the PFS team to collaborate on and develop the marketing strategy. “PFS really guided us through the entire process, ensuring that we came up with a marketing strategy that will help us have a larger market presence and help us restore our declining sales and margins,” she said. “Mukul’s involvement in this project brought in the right expertise that helped us come up with a plan that is comparable to the best practices. His leadership in this project ensured that we were on track and therefore saving a lot of time.”

Pauline is looking forward to putting the market strategy PFS volunteers helped develop into place and seeing its positive impact on sale volumes, margins, and new markets.

After working in food safety and quality for over 19 years, Chrissie Tuetken knows a thing or two about keeping food safe for consumers and making sure the processing plants meet strict standards. “I feel like it’s my duty to ensure companies have the resources to produce safe food. I have extensive experience in this area and love sharing this knowledge with others in order to establish good practices,” Chrissie said.

Last fall, Chrissie joined PFS client Bee Natural Uganda, a honey processor, on a project that included reviewing their GMP documents before being audited by the Uganda national regulatory body. “I’ve never worked with honey before, so this was a new experience for me. I had to learn what they do every day for their honey process,” she said.

There are many steps involved in producing safe honey for customers, Chrissie explained. “The product is checked before the combs are crushed and honey is extracted, then sieved, sterilized and packed into containers. I found it interesting that many of the general food safety ideas are the same even though the production steps were different. For example, we have to ensure our suppliers bring in the correct product and that checks are performed throughout the process to confirm the products meet specifications. Like many food products, the quality of our supply chain is key in producing quality products.”

When the project ends, Chrissie hopes Bee Natural Uganda and their quality team will gain a better understanding of the GMP prerequisites and can go on to become certified in the near future. “Overall, I have enjoyed learning from Bee Natural Uganda and talking through their food safety challenges as some of them are similar to the challenges we face in our plants.”

*Update (October 2020): Bee Natural Uganda is now prepared for a food safety and quality audit. Chrissie has recently joined a second project with Bee Natural Uganda helping them put together a HACCP plan that will further improve their food safety management system.