Carrefour shopping mall has launched the “Buy Kenya, Build Kenya” campaign that promotes purchase of local produce from Kenyan farmers in a bid to improve the Kenyan economy by helping smallholder farmers sell their produce.
According to the retailer’s statistics, almost all the fresh produce sold at Carrefour stores is sourced locally with two-thirds being direct from the farm.
Among the 35 fruits and vegetable suppliers working with Carrefour, 21 are growers who supply what they produce from their farms. 12 of the growers are very small-scale growers, who on average indicate that they have doubled the number of employees since they started working with Carrefour and grown their revenues.
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The campaign features testimonies of various suppliers whose businesses have grown and stabilised, attributed to a professional business relationship with Carrefour. Among other things, they cite the respect for payment terms and open-ended and consistent communication, which ensures that suppliers’ interests are always upheld, irrespective of their size.
Franck Moreau, Country Manager, at Majid Al Futtaim – Retail Kenya said, “We always seek to uphold the most ethical and professional standards in our dealings. We treat our suppliers as partners, and see our role as facilitators who enable our supplier access a wider market through our stores.”
More than 99 per cent of the over 30,000 items in Carrefour stores are sourced from local suppliers, which ensures that the revenues trickle down to various communities that are involved in the supply and produce to the retailer.
The launch of the campaign coincides with the opening of Carrefour’s fifth store in Kenya at the Sarit Centre shopping mall in Westlands.
The new store, which will be located where the previous anchor client was, officially opened its doors to customer on Thursday, April 19, 2018 and will stock a selected product range, aimed at addressing the immediate shopping needs for customers who live, work or commute through the busy Westlands area.
The store will however, be replaced by an ultramodern hypermarket store at the new wing of the 30-year-old mall at the end of 2018. The new wing is in the final stages of completion and is scheduled to open before the end of the year, with Carrefour as the anchor client. The ultramodern hypermarket will stock over 30,000 items in the 4,700 square metre selling space.
Carrefour already has four stores in Kenya, since opening its doors in 2016. They are located at The Hub in Karen, Two Rivers Mall, Thika Road Mall and The Junction. With the new store at Sarit Centre, the staff base for the retailer will go up to 1,400 employees.
Majid Al Futtaim currently operates over 230 Carrefour stores across 15 markets and continues seeking opportunities to open stores in Kenya and the rest of the greater East African region.