The Kerry Group’s acquisition of East Africa’s Afribon set to bring heathy and tasty food to consumers

NAIROBI, Kenya, 6 December 2021- /African Media Agency (AMA) /- The Kerry Group has expanded its footprint in Africa following its acquisition of Rwanda-based Afribon. This transaction further enhances Kerry’s focus as a leading business to business ingredient solutions provider for the food, beverage and pharmaceutical markets.

Launched in 2012, Afribon is specialised in the development, production and marketing of food flavours and comprises five production sites, in Cameroon and East Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania). The Pan-African food flavour development company provides flavour solutions in beverages, food service, confectionery, baked goods and dairy category, and is consequently a neat fit for Kerry Group. The latter already has a presence in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria.

Kerry Group Regional Vice President Peter Dillane says the acquisition is a significant expansion of its business in Africa, and importantly enables the localisation of its products and services. This is of particular importance when it comes to the development of new product ideas to formulation, recipe adjustment and initial production set up, given the diversity of regions and cuisine in Africa.

“Flavour and taste is highly localised, and therefore developing formulas and inputs for food manufacturers keen to take advantage of the regions must be equally specialized. We have seen this across the various global markets where we have worked with our customers to develop product innovations,” Dillane said, adding that the company is excited to expand their product co-creation services in the region, bolstered by Afribon’s local market expertise.

Kerry Group is a leader in global food ingredients, taste and nutrition solutions. It brings technology leadership and sustainable growth while assisting clients with proprietary consumer insights. Its considerable research and development arm is available for customers looking for a co-creation partner for their activities in the fields of: Ideation – Launch – Impact; Entering new categories / sub-channels; Enabling increased speed to market; and Delivering efficiencies across operations.

“The East African market will now benefit from access to Kerry’s more than 300 PhDs and Masters among its R&D division’s 1,100 scientists. This capacity is now available to build on the roots that Afribon has already established and which has the purpose of bringing local taste to life. Our vibrant tastes appeal particularly to the younger generations, which is nowhere more numerous than in Africa. Our R&D is focused on bringing what are already inspired East African beverages and foods to life, as well as bringing the next generation of food products to life through taste, health & wellness and sugar reduction,” says Dillane.

Peter Dillane, Regional VP, Kerry Group

In turn, Afribon Group is a regional African flavour house whose business philosophy is to cultivate a deep understanding of local markets and consumer preferences, so as to reduce complexity for them. Parallel to Kerry, it supports clients from the development of new product ideas to formulation, recipe adjustment and initial production set up.

“We have been pleased to work with food manufacturers to develop products in line with the unique demands of the East African market – from both a nutrition and flavour perspective. As we join hands with Kerry Group, our customers can have a wider expert pool to respond to consumer needs,” stated Afribon Co-Founder Anne Merienne at the sidelines of the AFMASS Food Expo.

Anne Merienne, Co-Founder, Afribon

The combination of Kerry and Afribon will accentuate the existing deep understanding and local insights of the East African consumer preference, while Kerry’s experience of Retail and Food service channels will enhance Afribon’s ability to partner customers with greater success.

“What we have now is global capability, executed locally by our team backed by the full technical and operational backing of Kerry. For our customers, this implies faster product development and delivery, locally stocked ingredients, greater flexibility and reduced lead times to support growing local customers,” added Julien Giuge, Afribon MD.

Julien Guige, Managing Director, Afribon

One of Kerry’s major strengths it brings to the African markets is its ability to tailor its innovations to the needs of particular clients. The challenge facing many food and beverage manufacturers is the demand for greater nutrition in their products. However, in the process of nutritionally optimising such products manufacturers can typically unbalance their recipe by, for instance, reducing sugar, moving to alternative proteins, adding functional Ingredients, and other changes. Kerry has the in-house nutritional portfolio expertise that understands taste challenges inherent to such a nutritional upgrade.

“Therefore, when developing solutions, we do not look at taste in isolation but takea holistic approach using our entire range of technologies. We help clients create nutritionally optimised products while maintaining the taste and mouthfeel consumerswant,” concludes East Africa Country Manager, Regis Manyange .

Regis Manyange, East Africa Country Manager, Kerry Group

Distributed byAfrican Media Agency(AMA)

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Gaëlle Thisse
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Kerry Group is a leader in global food ingredients, bringing technology leadership and sustainable growth to the food and beverage industries. At Kerry, we are dedicated to making the world of food and beverage better for everyone.Every day, millions of people throughout the world consume foods and beverages containing Kerry’s taste and nutrition solutions.At Kerry, we are proud to provide our customers – some of the world’s best-known food, beverage, and pharma brands – with the expertise, insights, and know-how they need to deliver products that people enjoy and feel better about consuming.
Afribon Group designs, produces & markets taste solutions for all application sectors in the food and beverage processing industry.As a regional African flavour house, we cultivate a deep understanding of local markets and consumer preferences. We strive to offer the best customer experience to our clients as well as reduce complexity for them. Our goal is to contribute to the success of the African food and beverage manufacturers.We support our clients from the development of new product ideas to formulation, recipe adjustment and initial production set up.

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