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Ajddigue Women's Argan Cooperative Village of Tidzi, Morocco Zoubida Charrouf founded the Ajddigue cooperative in 1997 to mechanize argan oil production and thereby widen the market for the oil, generate new work opportunities to local women, and provide new protections to the argan groves. Originally considered a marginal business, the cooperative today has 60 Moroccan woman members and continues to grow. Read more
Akiwenzie's Fish Cape Croker, Canada “You can only sell bad fish to a person once,” says Andrew Akiwenzie, “but your ability to sell good fish to people is unlimited.” That, in a nutshell, is the business strategy of Akiwenzie’s Fish, a sole proprietorship he runs with his wife Natasha. The enterprise is dedicated to catching, smoking, and distributing high-quality fish like perch, trout, and whitefish caught right outside their home in Cape Croker. Read more
Cabbages & Condoms Bangkok, Thailand Even open-minded westerners are taken aback when they walk into the original Cabbages & Condoms Restaurant (C&C) in Bangkok. Posters on the walls display prophylactics from around the world. Neat rows of multicolored condoms appear under the glass tops of dining tables. Condoms decorate lamps and flower vases in rest rooms. Bowls of “condom-mints” are presented as party favors. A sign assures customers that “our food is guaranteed not to cause pregnancy.” Read more
Cargills (Ceylon) PLC Colombo, Sri Lanka “This is not a corporate social responsibility program,” says Ranjit Page, CEO of Cargills (Ceylon) PLC, one of Sri Lanka’s oldest and largest businesses, “CSR is our business.” For its first 140 years, Cargills imported not only food but clothing, pharmaceuticals, and alcohol, largely to serve expatriates and the country’s urban elite. Today the company focuses on growing raw farm products and selling them within Sri Lanka. Read more
Fundacion Paraguaya's Financially Self-Sufficient Organic Farm School Cerrito, Paraguay “We change peasants into rural entrepreneurs,” says Martin Burt, executive director of Fundación Paraguaya, a nonprofit foundation that since 1985 has been providing micro-lending and sustainable training to Paraguay’s farmers and other agricultural workers, as well as to women and young people. Fundación Paraguaya’s Escuela Agrícola Orgánica Financieramente Autosufficiente (Financially Self-Sufficient Organic Farm School, or “Farm School” for short) offers a solid high school education focusing on strong agricultural practices, business skills, and entrepreneurship. Read more
Kasinthula Cane Growers Limited Kasinthula, Malawi “Very shaky.” That’s how Brian Namata describes the financial situation now facing Kasinthula Cane Growers, Limited (KCGL), a producer-owned limited liability company where he serves as general manager. Yet KCGL also contains elements of a business model that, with a little tweaking and luck, could yet prove very successful. Growing commodity sugarcane is always hard work, but it’s especially true in Kasinthula in southern Malawi, one of the poorest regions of one of Africa’s poorest countries. Read more
Kuapa Kokoo Kumasi, Ghana “The vision of our cooperative is to become a leading, caring, efficient farmer-based organization and the most globally recognized cooperative in cocoa production and marketing.” That’s how Paul “PCK” Buah, president of the Kuapa Kokoo Farmers Union, describes his community food enterprise’s mission in a 2007 annual report. As Ghana’s largest farmer cooperative, representing 45,000 cocoa growers, Kuapa Kokoo aims to be a “formidable Farmer-Based Organization” that can “mobilize and motivate its stakeholders to produce and market quality cocoa and cocoa products, improve members' livelihood, and satisfy consumers.” Read more
The Mavrovic Companies Slobostina, Croatia In 1998, when Zeljko Mavrovic entered the ring with Lennox Lewis for the heavyweight title in the National World Boxing Championship, one American reporter described him as a “mohawked mystery man with a macrobiotic diet and his own private mantra.” Even though he lost, the reporter conceded admiringly, “Mavrovic himself, far from playing the part of a walkover that had been scripted for him, proved awkward and frustrating, occasionally aggressive, and much better at handling a punch than the U.S. fight mob might have guessed.” Zeljko became a hero in his native Croatia. Many hoped for him to make a comeback, but no one expected it to be in local food. Read more
The National Onion Growers' Cooperative Marketing Association (NOGROCOMA) Bongabon, Philippines “To sustain the Philippines’ self-sufficiency in onions.” That’s the mission of the National Onion Growers’ Cooperative Marketing Association, or NOGROCOMA, according to Dulce Gozon, the organization’s current chair and CEO. Founded in 1954, NOGROCOMA is a 206-grower cooperative based in Bongabon, a town of 70,000 people and 28 barangays (small villages) in the province of Nueva Ecija, 100 miles north of Manila. Read more
Panchakanya Agriculture Cooperative Limited Thaligun, Kavresthali VDC, Ward No. 8, Nepal “The commitment is impressive,” says Bhimendra Katwal, an agricultural development expert in Nepal, as he tries to explain the success of the Panchakanya Agriculture Cooperative. “They don’t want to go back to using pesticides. They want to continue, so others can see and follow.” Over the past decade, the residents of Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, have been consuming more vegetables and grains, so most farmers in the region decided to increase yields by intensifying their use of fertili Read more
Sunstar Overseas Limited New Delhi, India “We had the right product from the right area with the right people.” That’s how Ajay Katwal sums up Sunstar Overseas Limited’s strategy for successfully marketing basmati rice worldwide. Ajay is the firm’s international marketing president. In Sanskrit, the word basmati means “the fragrant one.” Once known as the food of emperors, this long-grain rice is famous for its aroma and flavor, along with two distinct preparation characteristics: Read more
Sylva Professional Catering Services Limited Lusaka, Zambia “In other countries, almost everywhere you go, people promote their local foods,” complains Sylvia Banda, “but not so much in Zambia.” Her business, Sylva Professional Catering Services Limited, aims to fill this niche for visitors and locals alike. Besides catering, she also founded three profitable subsidiaries that specialize in Zambian cuisine: Sylva Professional Catering College; Sylva Foods Guest House, a restaurant and soon a hotel; and Sylva Food Solutions, a food processing business for domestic and export markets that also provides training to farmers and has recently ventured into manufacturing low-tech food processing equipment. Read more

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