SAGE Uganda expands into manufacturing through an upscaling program

Some agricultural products face the challenge of poor quality or failure to meet the market quality requirement, which has been the downfall of some producers and distributors. SAGE Uganda found itself at risk of brand failure due to quality shortcomings of the Shea seeds they were distributing. “The quality deficit of the shea seeds we were packaging for distribution resulted from the poor post-harvest handling by farmers due to lack of the requisite equipment,” says Robert Okello, the Managing Director for SAGE Uganda. 

One of the ways SAGE Uganda found to solve this challenge was to venture into value addition to enhance the quality of the products they would eventually release into the market. However, the new processing business line was not guaranteed because the company faced capacity and financial contains. “When I heard about the Invest in Africa’s upscaling program, I knew we had found a solution because the program had ‘access to finance’ and ‘new product development’ components,” said Robert. According to him, SAGE Uganda joined the program to augment its capacity in new product development and boost its finance readiness to seek financing for its new line of business.

The program involved five upscaling components: access to finance, market access, new product development, good manufacturing practices, and transparency and traceability. Through the access to finance component, SAGE Uganda, like the other beneficiaries, has developed a professional pitch deck for fundraising. Robert said, “With the pitch deck and the new pitching skills, SAGE Uganda participated in an incubation process for access to 20,000 USD worth of financing that we intend to invest in a processing facility for shea oil and animal feed”. According to Robert, in addition to the incubation process, SAGE Uganda is currently engaging a financial institution for a merger that will expand its finance margins to fund the business expansion sufficiently.

Through the program, SAGE Uganda also realized its finance management gaps and has taken strategic initiatives such as adopting an accounting tool and hiring an accountant to ensure improved business management. This move will be vital to successfully deploy the new finance margins and operationalize the new processing wing. 

Beyond the finance readiness and exploration of finance opportunities, the product development component has enabled SAGE Uganda to realize the market demand for the new product. “With proper guidance from the program, we did market research and established a market demand for Shea oil, especially in the food, pharmaceutical, and cosmetics industries,” said Robert.  
SAGE Uganda is one of the 40 enterprises from Kenya and Uganda that participated in a program to upscale manufacturing SMEs in natural products. The program was implemented by Invest in Africa (IIA) in partnership with GIZ Business Scouts for Development.