Bles Dairies has been active in consultancy activities in East Africa for several years (under the name of our consultancy discipline The Friesian). To service customers in East Africa from short distance and in every aspect of the dairy value chain, we established in 2016 the new company “Bles Dairies East Africa Ltd”. Comparably, Bles Dairies is starting a similar business branch in Asia. This new business, Bles Dairies Asia, will be further elaborated in 2017. Read more about Bles Dairies’ local representations, the background, developments and prospects!
Structure of Bles Dairies East Africa
The organization of Bles Dairies East Africa Ltd. consists of three business sections: Trade, Farming and Consultancy. The Trade section deals with the sales of high quality livestock, genetics and feed. The section of Farming deals with livestock rearing and demonstration. Consultancy focuses on developing and improving dairy, in Kenya as well as countries in the region.
What has been undertaken so far?
The first business activities consisted of a pilot importation of non-pregnant Holstein Friesian heifers from The Netherlands to Kenya (North Rift). Those young heifers were partly raised in Kenya and became pregnant through Artificial Insemination with sexed semen in Kenya. Therefore they are adapted to local Kenyan Dairy circumstances. Meanwhile, all these heifers are sold! More heifers will be imported later this year.
What is scheduled for this year?
The first focus will be on the trade discipline: trade of livestock, genetics and in a later stadium also the manufacturing and marketing of high quality feed. Concerning the trade of livestock: in 2017 a couple of importations of heifers are scheduled. The yearlings will be housed at the SAMO-farm of Mr. Jeffrey Samoei, who is also business partner in Bles Dairies East Africa. Jeffrey Samoei is also accountable for the sales that concern the trade activities. Consequently, we will organize advisory services to East African countries from our new Kenyan base. These consultancy services are based on the concept of aid for trade and include the establishment of a training facility that will be located at the dairy farm of Jeffrey Samoei.
Mr. Dirk Harting as Managing Director
Last year we started the promotion of our new businesses and in 2017 we will even put more effort into this. In our opinion, the best way to strengthen our trading activities is to let one of our associate experts locally lead and represent our company. Therefore, we appointed expert Mr. Dirk Harting (see here his profile), who started his position of Managing Director of Bles Dairies East Africa at the beginning of January. He is stationed in Kenya (Eldoret) for approximately 2 years and will be the public face of Bles Dairies East Africa. He will further develop and strengthen our business activities in East Africa.
In addition, Dirk Harting will work together with Dutch Development Organization SNV. In cooperation with SNV, Bles Dairies East Africa will initiate a project that is designed to set up and organize Dairy Advisory & Training Services. These services is an integral part of the core business and will play a key role in supporting those responsible for sales & marketing of Bles Dairies East Africa’s products. This will be done through pre- and after sales advisory services to (aspirant) clients, to assure that clients’ farms are well equipped and managed to receive and rear high breed dairy cows sold by Bles Dairies East Africa (pre sales advisory), and to successfully and profitably manage them (after sales advisory). These Dairy Advisory & Training Services is an unique and innovative concept in the trade of international livestock business. The latter is usually limited to trading (export) of cattle and does not take the client’s situation in consideration, i.e. the farm’s suitability and capacity to receive and successfully manage high breed cows and to assure good herd & fertility management and animal welfare. Bles Dairies East Africa’s Dairy Advisory & Training Services is set-up to pay due attention to the buyer’s situation during pre- and after-sales. Bles Dairies East Africa will recruit local dairy advisors who understand the local setting and market.
Future foundation of Bles Dairies Asia
Alongside Africa, Bles Dairies is also a very active player at the (East) Asian market. Asia constitutes a significant area of agricultural development and Bles Dairies plays an important role wherever dairy farming is being developed worldwide. Bles Dairies has over 20 years of extensive experience in a large part of the Asian and Pacific continent.
So Bles Dairies keeps on developing! Following the concept of establishing local presences in emerging markets, we are setting up a company in Asia with similar features and corporate activities: Bles Dairies Asia. A Bles Dairies representative in Asia is already present; our business development manager Auke Cnossen will be the public face of Bles Dairies Asia (see here his profile).
The new company, headquartered out of Hong Kong, will provide all sort of dairy services in the Asia-Pacific region: Livestock, Genetics and Consultancy. The main focus will be on the provision of advisory services, including feasibility studies, farm improvement, training, interim farm management, business planning, raw milk sourcing strategies, matchmaking and more.
With Bles Dairies Asia we now entered a preliminary phase; we are drawing up business plans and company objectives. Soon we will bring you more information about this newest business branch, its activities, projects and representatives!
We see good opportunities and possibilities to offer our products and services in these regions. Stay tuned for updates on the two new businesses!