Expert Advice Yields Big Profits for Tomato Processor
By sharing technical and marketing expertise, USAID’s Azerbaijan Agribusiness Center (AAC) has helped scores of rural producers and processors dramatically increase their sales. This is one story.
Operating for less than two years in southern Azerbaijan, a small fruit and juice company which employs 45 people to work its 30 hectares of farmland and process tomato paste, pickles, feijoa jam and compote contacted AAC for help.
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| Fuad Agazadeh, AAC Account Manager (on the left) and Jeff Neville, AAC Labeling Specialist (on the right) meet with the company management |
The AAC team worked closely with the client to implement strategies to address its sales, marketing, and packaging issues. AAC Account Manager Fuad Agazadeh performed a SWOT—Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats—analysis for the company and prepared a Strategic Action Plan. He posted product information on popular regional trade websites, conducted local market research, and convinced the client to advertise on local television stations.
AAC Labeling Specialist Jeff Neville recommended that the company improve its packaging and labeling and Agazadeh connected management with a printing house in Baku and another AAC client to procure new glass jars. As a result, the company was able to sell its products in higher-quality, well-marked jars at a lower price. The client credits its new labeling and packaging with increasing sales, and has already sold 280,000 glass jars of tomato paste for $140,000 in the first quarter of this year. Agazadeh also introduced a Georgian buyer who had been working with other AAC clients to the company, which led to a contract totaling $97,200 for an additional 180 tons of tomato paste.
Next, the AAC team put the company in contact with a Dutch seed company to improve the quality of its crops. Upon evaluation of the yield from a demonstration plot planted by the Dutch company, the client has decided to exclusively grow the new cucumber and tomato varieties next year.
The client has expressed gratitude for the expert support received from USAID in growing its business and plans to continue working with the AAC to develop additional export opportunities.
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