![]() Find a quality local partner who can guide you in understanding and addressing local needs.Įmbrace technology. They then help develop and implement projects that PFS volunteers can address back home. Our in-market partner, TechnoServe, in partnership with USAID and PEPFAR, is evaluating, hiring, and managing small, in-country teams to identify promising companies. What valuable expertise can your company share?Įnlist on-the-ground support. Our teams work alongside our African partners to create viable, culturally-sensitive technology solutions in areas such as process, food formulation, equipment design, packaging, etc. As one of the world’s largest food companies, we knew we could help African food processors and smallholder farmers by sharing our food processing expertise. How can you apply what you do best to reduce poverty and increase economic activity in the developing world? Here are some ideas: But I believe the role General Mills is playing is exactly the role we can play best: lending our technological expertise. Our vision is big, and our journey is long. PFS is working with 40 food processors on more than 140 projects in Kenya, Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi, and most recently Ethiopia - and we are looking for more. It’s a powerful idea - and it’s playing out with more and more small companies. (Veronica is pictured below, left, with COMACO employee Whitson Daka, center, and me on the right.) Today, she not only feeds her children, she can also send them to school. Because PFS is helping COMACO grow, creating markets for her crops, Veronica’s income is rising. She also cares for her family, including several children she has taken into her home who have lost parents to HIV/AIDS. Farmers work hard, and Veronica certainly does. Veronica sells her cotton to Cargill, and her corn to COMACO, a local nonprofit that markets food to consumers while also striving to save wild animals and ecosystems. Veronica Banda is one impressive farmer I met recently in eastern Zambia. With that, Nyirefami increased their milling capacity five-fold, paving the way for the company to buy more grain from local farmers, while also earning the highest level of food certification available in Tanzania. PFS volunteers were able to provide Nyirefami with the technical expertise needed to install a quality control lab, and improve washing and pre-drying operations. We’ve been in the milling business more than 140 years, and with Gold Medal, we’re still America’s leading flour brand. For example, Nyirefami, in Tanzania, is a company that mills flour. Though some may see this work as philanthropy, we see it as creating shared value with local African businesses. On the ground, our African partners work directly with our partner, TechnoServe. We adopted a cloud-based platform that serves as a knowledge repository for all our work, and is specifically designed to help our food scientists and engineers seamlessly work with our African partners from 8,000 miles away. Each partner brings different expertise, but together we can accomplish far more than any of us could alone.Īs a group, we saw the need to fully embrace technology in a way that would easily allow skilled volunteers to transfer their knowledge to our partners in Africa. ![]() We’ve partnered with international NGOs, such as TechnoServe, and social investors like Root Capital. We’ve received support from bi-lateral and multi-lateral agencies, such as the World Food Program and USAID, which helps shape and guide PFS by sharing experiences, methodologies and resources through a public-private partnership formed in 2010. We’ve recruited world-class companies to join our effort, including our U.S. The name itself describes the business model. ![]() With this in mind, we founded the nonprofit Partners in Food Solutions (PFS). We began to think, could we share what we know - our knowledge and technical expertise as a food company - with small and growing food producers in Africa? By helping local food processors produce safer and more nutritious foods, could we help create sustainable market access and better livelihoods for millions of African farmers and their families? And, could that boost farmer incomes, strengthen food security, and increase the supply of affordable, nutritious foods in local economies? General Mills employees were already volunteering their time packing meals for African children and partnering with other organizations to build grain storage systems and dig community wells - but we believed that we could do more. So, it was difficult at first to see how General Mills, half a world away in North America, could play a meaningful role in addressing hunger in Africa. If you knew how to help feed the hungry - would you? Most of us would, but often we just don’t know how. ![]()
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