SWEET SUCCESS FOR AFRIPACK

Afripack Consumer Flexibles (ACF) won the prestigious Winning Partnership award at the recent Tiger Brands Snacks & Treats Supplier awards event.

Afripack Consumer Flexibles hits a high note, receiving the Winning Partnership Award 2010 from Tiger Brands Snacks
& Treats. KAREN STRETCH discovers the secret to its success.

AT the recent Tiger Brands Snacks & Treats (TBST) Supplier Awards event, Afripack Consumer Flexibles (ACF) was awarded the prestigious Winning Partnership Award 2010. The annual function honours suppliers whom TBST believes have made valuable contributions to its business.‘The Winning Partnership award recognises a supplier’s skill to make a difference by creating collaborative win-win partnerships,’ explains Umashani Naidoo, Beacon procurement manager: packaging. Afripack’s ability to embrace a challenge and turn it into a winning formula, thus realising benefits for both parties, is commendable.’

ACF’s award comes in the wake of the successful packaging relaunch of the Beacon’s 45g, 100g and 200g chocolate slabs.
We’re very proud of this latest success,’ enthuses Tyrone Voller, ACF Flexibles marketing manager. Considering our short history, it’s a wonderful achievement and an equally wonderful message to be sending to our market. We can only grow from here.’ He’s referring to the fact that it’s just one year since Afripack purchased most of Astrapak’s Flexibles division, which propelled Afripack into South Africa’s highly competitive consumer flexible packaging industry (Supplement PPM, Sept09).

In that short space of time, significant investments have been made in the best technology and the right people, and ACF has been transformed into one cohesive business with a tight-knit team. Derek Huntley, Afripack exco member, has worked
closely with Beacon for many years and understands the importance of teamwork and close collaboration. Having experienced the transition from Astraflex to ACF, and having great belief in Afripack’s ‘Sisonke’ culture, as well as the role this plays in the market place, he’s convinced that a major factor in ACF’s success has been the ability to understand customers’ brands and to develop suitable packaging solutions. ‘Beacon has an exceptionally strong set of values and work principles; and much of our success comes from realising those values and developing synergies,’ Derek explains.

For Beacon, communication and integrity are the cornerstones of any relationship and building a winning partnership means finding suppliers who share the company’s values and are prepared to embrace challenges along the way. ‘The category team at Beacon was adamant and uncompromising when it came to quality requirements for the relaunch,’ Derek continues. ‘Once we understood the brief and focused on achieving common goals, it worked incredibly well.’ Nosi Shoniwa, Beacon’s senior brand manager: chocolates and occasions, who worked on the project but has subsequently moved on, explains the
rationale behind the project: ‘We made some decisive step-changes to relaunch our range of chocolate slabs, choosing a metallised finish to “shine” above other brands on-shelf. What really stood us in good stead during the entire process were open lines of communication.’