11/25/2016 0 Comments Two Enterprises, One ObjectiveWhile the organic market in Egypt is currently rolling in success, nearly every business struggled at the beginning. Trying to change the consumer’s behavior has been the biggest challenge, as people normally stick to what they are used to or comfortable with. The process requires tremendous patience because educating the Egyptian market or customer on something as unique as the concept of organic takes a long time. Both Offah.com and Egyptian Hydrofarms had serious trouble taking off as organic businesses. The two of them started around 2011, when Egypt was going through its biggest political transformation after the 25 January revolution. Besides launching at a critical period, the enterprises had to build their brands and customer base in a society where the main objective, eating healthy, was unofficially rejected.
Offah.com was founded by Omar Hegab, an American University in Cairo alumnus and CEO of Egyptian agricultural trading company called Food Stuff. The website sells natural and organic fruits, vegetables and herbs. Offah launched in August 2011; it remained an online service till its fifth anniversary in October 2015. Hegab then joined Louay El Kut, a strategic farmer, to expand the business. El Kut is responsible of meeting with the suppliers and confirming their methods of production are completely chemical-free before any deal is done. The two partners decided to move Offah to the next level of not only being an online service but also an offline by initiating their own retail inside Basic mini-market in City View Compound. “First 3 years were of course impossible to grow a business, even to spend on marketing or anything like that because people were very much into the political situation in Egypt,” said Hegab. “Getting the customers, it was gonna come, It took time, it took years but anyway it was a political situations in the country and it passed,” Hegab added. Finding willing suppliers who follow the same norms as Offah was perhaps the greatest challenge for the partners. Because the business was initially very small with zero stock policy, convincing the suppliers and getting daily fresh goods was a logistical hassle. Even though Offah now has distribution points in different areas around Cairo, delivering orders in a short time while maintaining their quality was tough at the beginning. “We use to get our orders delivered from our suppliers in the morning in order to be delivered to the customers three, four hours after, by ensuring that we had freshly harvest produced, harvest the same day, same morning,” said Hegab. Egyptian Hydrofarms is one of the website’s clients. The Offah partners sell Egyptian Hydrofarms’ chemical-free leafy greens on offah.com. Amr Bassiouny as well as Adel El Shentenawy are the founders of Egyptian Hydrofarms. The farms are along the Cairo-Alex Desert Road. Bassiouny handles the technical aspect of the company and anything pre-harvest, whereas El Shentenawy manages the commercial aspect of the business and any activities post-harvest. Egyptian Hydrofarms launched in 2012 after Bassiouny introduced the idea of hydroponics to El Shentenawy. Hydroponics means growing plants in water, which greatly helps in avoiding the risk of fertilized soil. It doesn’t only eliminate chemical pesticides but it also allows environmentally friendly production. The partners, expectedly, struggled at the beginning, especially because Egyptian Hydrofarms was the first hydroponic farm in Egypt. “We did a lot of presentations with hotels and restaurants and talking with people about what is hydroponic, how it works, why is it better,” El Shentenawy shared. Raising awareness took 6 months to a year of knocking on doors and presenting the enterprise’s products. Technology and social media were clearly a plus as they only added to the productivity of the promotion. The partners eventually managed to reach customers and surprisingly created an even bigger demand than their production. They are currently working on expanding their business. It seems that all Egyptians need is awareness to realize that there is a higher quality of food and a better health life out there. “Hydroponics I think is the future of agriculture, I think this will cause an agricultural evolution with how fast things are going and how fast people are responding, switching or converting to hydroponics, I think this will be a very positive move that will help a lot with the agriculture in Egypt,” said El Shentenawy. According to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation, in 2011 the Egyptian government decided to test the idea of hydroponics by starting a programme involving 48 families in Cairo and Alexandria. Each family was provided with a hydroponic system during two seasons, winter and summer. The results turned out great as the plant growth was consistent and the obtained yield was at an acceptable level. The purpose was to enable families, particularly poor families, to grow pesticide-free vegetables.
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