Apple’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48110709" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">iPhone sales have dropped</a>&nbsp;in recent quarters, particularly in China, where cheaper rivals Huawei Technologies and Xiaomi have gained traction. Smartphone revenue fell 17% for the latest three months to $31 billion, but the stock jumped 5% on the results. One big reason: record-high services revenue.



The company’s services division includes its App Store, Apple Pay, iTunes, cloud services and more. It is now the second biggest segment for Apple after the iPhone, with revenue of $37 billion in 2018, and Morgan Stanley expects it to&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/11/08/apples-services-will-grow-to-over-100-billion-per-year-in-2023-says-analyst" target="_blank">top $100 billion in 2023</a>. The projected growth speaks to the power of the Apple brand.



<a href="https://www.forbes.com/powerful-brands/list/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Click here for the full list of The World&#8217;s Most Valuable Brands</a>



Apple tops&nbsp;Forbes’ annual look at the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/powerful-brands/list/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">world’s most valuable brands</a>&nbsp;for the ninth straight time.&nbsp;The brand of the tech giant is worth $205.5 billion, up 12% over last year. It is the first time a brand crossed the $200 billion threshold.



Apple has made an art form of moving its customer base from one product category to another. Mac users adopted the iPod, followed by the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. Customers trust the brand will work seamlessly across all categories in the Apple ecosystem, which has helped make the Cupertino, California-based company the most valuable in the world. Services is the next frontier for the company and brand.



While Apple maintains its spot at the top, Google is closing fast with a value of $167.7 billion, up 23%. The Apple brand was worth more than twice as much as the ubiquitous search brand just four years ago.



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="The World’s Most Reputable CEOs 2019 (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/lists/2019/05/22/the-worlds-most-reputable-ceos-2019/" target="_blank">The World’s Most Reputable CEOs 2019</a>



Google has cornered the global search engine market with a 92% share over the past 12 months,&nbsp;<a href="http://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according to StatCounter</a>&nbsp;(Bing, 2.6%, and Yahoo, 1.9%, are miles behind). Like Apple, Google has used its brand to move into other categories of consumers’ everyday life from email to Web browsing to maps to cloud storage.



While many global consumer brands struggle with the changing habits of their customers, the biggest tech brands continue to be juggernauts. Microsoft ($123.5 billion) and Amazon ($97 billion) round out the top four and both jumped more than 20% in value.



One tech brand that was dinged over the past 12 months is Facebook, which ranks fifth overall. It was the only brand in the top ten to fall in value, to an estimated $88.9 billion, down 6% from last year. The number of active Facebook users reached 2.4 billion this year, but the social media brand has been hampered by concerns around data protection, privacy policies and fake news.



Coca-Cola is the top brand outside of tech, with a value of $59.2 billion, up 3%, and ranked sixth overall.



Brands: By The Numbers



The 100 most valuable brands are worth a cumulative $2.33 trillion, up 8% over last year. Tech brands were the top gainers, led by e-commerce giant Amazon, up 37% to $97 billion. Other big winners: Netflix (+34%), Google (+27%) and Adobe (+27%). H&amp;M had the biggest fall, down 12% to $11.5 billion. The Swedish retailer has struggled and cut prices last year on clothing to clear excess inventory. More than 20 brands declined in value, including ESPN (-10%), GE (-8%) and Hyundai (-8%).



U.S. companies landed 56 brands among the top 100, as well as 80% of the top 10. Germany (11 brands), France (7) and Japan (6) were the next most prolific countries of origin. Brands from 16 countries made the final cut.



In addition to the proliferation of tech brands (20 of the top 100), financial services (13), automotive (11), consumer packaged goods (10) and retail (8) were the most common industries.



Methodology



We began with a universe of more than 200 global brands, which include both corporate and product brands. We required brands to have more than a token presence in the U.S., which eliminated some large brands like multinational telecom firm&nbsp;Vodafone&nbsp;and Chinese e-commerce behemoth&nbsp;Alibaba.



Our first step in valuing the brands was to determine revenue and earnings before interest and taxes for each one. We gathered these from company reports, Wall Street research and industry experts.&nbsp;Forbes averaged earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) over the past three years and subtracted from earnings a charge of 8% of the brand’s capital employed, figuring a generic brand should be able to earn at least 8% on this capital.



Forbes&nbsp;applied the corporate tax rate in the parent company’s home country to that net earnings figure. Next, we allocated a percentage of those earnings to the brand based on the role brands play in each industry. Brands are crucial when it comes to beverages and luxury goods, but less so with airlines and fuel, when price and convenience are more important.



To this net brand earnings number, we applied the average price-to-earnings multiple over the past three years to arrive at the final brand value. For privately held outfits we applied earnings multiples for comparable public companies.



-Kurt Badenhausen; Forbes Staff

960×0

The World’s Most Valuable Brands 2019: Apple On Top At $206 Billion

Coca Cola Beverages South Africa (CCBSA) launches an R20 million fund for small supplier development and procurement, annually, for the next five years.



This was announced by the Financial Director, Walter Leonhardt at Gallagher Convention Centre at the third annual Supplier Development Conference.



CCBS is the
South African-based subsidiary of Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA).



Leonhardt said the purpose of this fund is to assist young upcoming black entrepreneurs in the Coca-Cola value chain.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“We are, today, launching the CCBSA supplier fund of access to funding. To address the issue of access to funding which most SMEs experience,” said Leonhardt.</blockquote>



This will enable the entrepreneurs’ procurement process to be easier.



&#8220;It is to help them buy equipment, fund working capital and to help them overcome something we have identified as a challenge for upcoming businesses, which is access to capital on quit lenient terms,&#8221; said Leonhardt.



Budding
entrepreneurs can visit their website to find out how they can access the
funds.



There were over 120 suppliers of CCBSA in attendance. 



Managing director of CCBSA Velaphi Ratshefola said they spent R2.35 billion last year, supporting 567 black-owned suppliers, of whom, 265 were black female owned suppliers. &nbsp;



“So for me, it is clear that this is working. We have helped create a very inclusive economy. We need to play our part and we need to ensure that only through an inclusive growing economy we can create a stable environment where businesses can flourish. 



“If we do not have a stable environment, a stable economy, we will have a lot of disturbances which are never good for business,” said Ratshefola.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



“So for all of
us, we should not do it just for social reasons, we must do it for the success
of businesses and imperative,” said Ratshefola.&nbsp;

Coca cola truck in the countryside, Oromia, Jimma, Ethiopia

Coca Cola South Africa Improves SME Role In Value Chain

Healthy drinks have become a booming business in Nigeria. Even Coca-Cola is getting in on the action; the fizzy-drink giant acquired a 40% stake in Chi, Nigeria’s largest juice and dairy company with an estimated valuation of around $1 billion, in February. In the wake of this deal, Nigerian entrepreneur, Seun Abolaji, is determined to turn his lemons into lemonade and liquid cash.
“We feel like the Nigerian drinks market is worth millions if not billions. Look at what Coke did with Chi. It’s a massive industry and a lot of people are looking to invest in this market,” says Abolaji.
Abolaji and his brother started Wilson’s Juice Company about three years ago with $10. Today, the company has a multi-million-naira turnover and is stocked in all the major retail outlets, with a presence in over 13 states in Nigeria. The company also has its own factory with a growing workforce of about 30 people. Their success is a result of Abolaji’s ability to spot a gap in the market, a trait that earned him the nickname Candy Man when he was at school.
“I was buying candy and reselling it to the kids in school. They used to call me the Candy Man because my locker would be full of candies and I had clients who would buy everything. I would buy the candies for like $1 and they would buy it from me for like $20. I don’t know why they would not just go down to the store, but I guess I provided them with access,” says Abolaji.
Born in Nigeria, Abolaji migrated to the United States, at the age of eight, where he obtained a degree in psychology from the University of Colorado. After dreaming of becoming a record producer, Abolaji succumbed to a career in pharmaceuticals to please his parents.
“After I finished undergrad, I used to produce music too. I wanted to be a producer, I told my parents ‘look I want to go to New York, I have been doing this for a long time and I want to go study under someone’. My parents did not agree. They locked me in my basement and they said ‘you need to figure out what you want to do with your life,’” he says.
“I made a list of about five things. There was music producer, doctor, pharmacist, entrepreneur and some other things. So, I asked myself, how can I make this amount of money within this period of time and what will get me there fastest and pharmacy was the one that was at the top of the list because you could make six figures.”
Abolaji worked with CVS Pharmacy in Manhattan for five years. In 2007, he decided to visit Nigeria and did a pharmacy internship with Alpha Pharmacy in Ikeja, a suburb on the mainland of Lagos. That experience taught Abolaji two things. Firstly, he did not want to be a pharmacist; secondly, he could actually live in Nigeria.
It was then that Abolaji decided it was time for a career change.
“So, we went to a farmland my family owned in Osa. My parents had a project they were working on and they had spent so much money on it but we realized that the people stole the money and nothing was done. So my brother came down to Nigeria and saw the situation and decided to fix it. The land was supposed to be a factory for producing ekuru, a local produce made from palm kernel cake,” says Abolaji.
After trying to revive the business for two years, the brothers ran out of money and had to shut down the factory.
“We were selling everything on credit and buying everything on cash and that could not be sustained. We ran out of money because people promised to pay at different times and they didn’t pay.”
Not deterred, Abolaji saw an opportunity for their next business venture.
“We thought to ourselves ‘we are both athletes, there are no fresh juices available, so let’s start making fresh juice to sell’. So we bought a bag of oranges and a plastic juicer and started making juices at Covenant University. We rented a kiosk and then we had a natural progression into smoothies and then one day we saw lemons, and we were like let’s add lemonade,” says Abolaji.
Before long, all their clients only wanted lemonade and they decided to focus on this product. As business took off, they employed more people and Abolaji realized they needed a system to track sales.
“One day, I said to my brother, ‘why don’t we put this in a bottle?’. We had about 11 people working for us and you never knew how much sales you were making because they were squeezing the lemons into cups, adding sugar and selling for cash. It was difficult to track how many cash sales you were making in a day. So I said to myself ‘if we put it in bottles, I don’t have to be here to oversee everything. I give you 10 bottles, I know exactly how much money I should get back,’” says Abolaji.
The bottled lemonade was a hit with their customers and Abolaji realized it was time to take the business to the next level.
“We decided to go to a bottling company and we got a generic bottle. We began thinking that this could be something, and that is when we got the square bottle and began branding it,” says Abolaji.
The next step was to give the drink a name.
“One of my brother’s friends is called Wilson. When were doing it in cups, they came all the way from New Zealand, sleeping on concrete floors, just to see what was going on and that was key for us. Also, my last name is Abolaji and we didn’t think anybody would want to drink Abolaji Lemonade. So we played with different names which a Nigerian, and anyone in the world, can say and we just landed on Wilson.”
The duo soon got their certification to sell drinks in Nigeria and began knocking on the doors of supermarkets. In the past three years, the company has grown organically. Abolaji is now raising funds to build a larger factory. The long-term plan is to be the go-to natural beverage company in Nigeria and expand to other African countries. The company also recently added a second product, called Pink Lemonade, made from hibiscus.
The goal is to expand to the open market, which accounts for about 90% of retail in Nigeria, according to Abolaji. To do that, they need to compete with the locally manufactured drinks, which are a lot cheaper than Wilson’s. However, Abolaji is undeterred; if the sale of Chi is anything to go by, he knows he is exactly where he needs to be, making lemonade out of life’s lemons.

When Life Gives  You Lemons,  Make Millions

The test-tube sized bottles go into the piping machine. After being heated, they’re blown into shape and then filled with the carbonated soda. Out on the other side pops the brown flavored drink, Mo Cola. It hopes to compete with industry heavyweight Coca-Cola. Good luck.
Coca-Cola, ranked third on FORBES’ list of the most powerful brands in the world, is a force to be reckoned with. The company owns 40% of the market share in Tanzania and will attack any company that tries to take the smallest percentage away.
Here in Dar es Salaam, the rivalry for the best carbonated drink is fought out between Coca Cola and Pepsi. But, Mohammed Dewji, the CEO of the MeTL Group, is expanding his billion-dollar empire worth $1.2 billion on the FORBES rich list.
MeTL has invested more than $48 million into the drink called MO. It is available in a variety of flavors including orange, mango, lemon, malt and cola.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-2807" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/880A2945-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
Although Coca-Cola has managed to shut down many of its competitors, is Mo-Cola something they should be worried about?
“Whether they are nervous or not, I don’t know. But I tell you something, I don’t have much to lose, if anything they have market share to lose; I have zero market share. The only thing that can happen is I’ll go up; right?” says Dewji.
But he is not the first to go up against the industry giant. The list is long: Afri-Cola, Qibla Cola, Zam Zam Cola, Kola Real and, Coca-Cola’s biggest rival, Pepsi.
In 1994, Richard Branson launched Virgin Cola. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal he said he thought Virgin Cola was going to become the number one brand in the world. They had the right resources and the right people, so what went wrong?
“We decided to take on the might of Coca-Cola. We had a great brand we had a great product [and] it tasted better than Coke. We launched in the United Kingdom, we were outselling Coke, we were outselling Pepsi and for one wonderful year we had dreams of Virgin Cola being the number one brand on everyone’s lips when they wanted to buy a soft drink,” says Branson.
Unfortunately, Branson would never see that dream come true. Someone in Atlanta warned the then president of Coca-Cola, Roberto Crispulo Goizueta, of the Brit who was becoming a problem.
“Soon every retailer we were in, we found Virgin Cola disappearing from the shelves,” says Branson.
And just like that Virgin Cola was history.
This history doesn’t worry Dewji. He took 35% of the detergent market share from Proctor and Gamble. Fast growth in the edible oils sector saw them dominate 60% of the market share, beating Unilever.
“I’m not saying that brand consciousness doesn’t exist, but I believe that price consciousness is very important. I think that if I give a good product at the right price I can repeat the stories like I’ve done with my edible oil and soap and detergent powder,” he says.
So let’s say Dewji gains market share, ruffling a few white and red feathers. Then, Coke offers Mo-Cola a deal he cannot refuse. Will Dewji sell?
“I’m yet to sell a business. At the end of the day, I’m not emotionally attached to companies, I’m attached to values so anything at a right price, at my price, why not? I would sell any business,” he says.
But Dewji’s mind is far from failure. He’s banking on the MeTL Group’s vast distribution network of more than 100 depots in Tanzania and 2000 transportation vehicles that deliver, door to door, deliveries for many of their products, which include everything from detergents to tooth picks, bubblegum and pens.
“My strategy is to be able to make it affordable to the normal person on the street. I’m not saying I’m going to play the price strategy but this is going to be a surprise for everyone; whether I will sell the same milliliters as they will we don’t know, whether I will sell more for the same price we don’t know or whether I will sell 50ml at a much less price, I don’t know.”
MeTL is in 10 African countries: Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Eastern Congo, South Sudan, Malawi, Mozambique and Ethiopia. The group also trades internationally.
Within the year, Dewji hopes to snatch 10% of the market share from Tanzania’s Coca-Cola plant. Only time will tell if Mo-Cola will rival Coca-Cola or be slaughtered like Virgin Cola.

Oh Mo! Here Comes A New Cola

Africa offers a great payoff for Coca-Cola. The brand known for its sometimes cheesy, sometimes inspirational tag lines, taps into the past and the present pulse of the continent. Its ‘we are one Kumbaya’ images resonate with the African ethos of Ubuntu.
So too does the narrative that anything is possible, which is captured by the Coke Side of Life advertisement campaign. Both messages are consistent with the image makeover Africa is enjoying, off the back of its status as the world’s second-fastest growing region.
For a company that probably receives more bad press than Walmart, especially for its less-than-savory business practices, it is important for Coca-Cola to be seen getting it right on the continent.
Dr. Susan Mboya Kidero, recently appointed to head up the Coca-Cola Africa Foundation, which is part of the company’s philanthropic arm, is a perfect fit for Coke.
Not only is she a cheerleader for the multinational, she is an ardent believer in uplifting communities. Careful to avoid the negative reputation that often accompanies corporates operating in developing countries, Kidero neatly sidesteps the limitations of charity in a world where philanthropy is under pressure to be more than just a handout.
“I live and breathe sustainability. Whatever I do, it needs to live. I don’t like the word charity,” she explains.
Kidero joined Coca-Cola in 2008, after 14 years at consumer goods giant Procter &amp; Gamble in the United States. Initially she was appointed as the general manager of Coca-Cola South Africa, a top-10 market for the company, which brings in more than $800 million in annual revenue. During her tenure, Kidero managed to increase growth, which had been in decline, and saw Coke participate successfully as a corporate partner in the FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
If her childhood nostalgia about carefully crafted Coke branding is anything to go by, it makes sense that Kidero ended up working for the world’s most recognizable brand. It also helps that, unlike many parents, Kidero’s mother did not tell her that the fizzy drink would make her fat or cause her teeth to fall out.
“I didn’t have a negative perception. I actually grew up associating it with fun. We didn’t have (Coke) every day, and so when we did, it was generally because company was coming over and we were all going to have a lot of fun,” says Kidero, smiling.
“We once asked (at a workshop): what is your favorite memory of Coke, or any of our products? And I said: for me, it is when we were growing up, Coke came in glass and it would clink. And whenever we would hear that we would think, oh we are going to have a fun day today! That sound is still a very positive sound.”
As an executive of the multinational, Kidero takes her role as brand ambassador to heart. She says heading up the Coca-Cola Africa Foundation is a logical extension of being involved in women’s empowerment, as both are about improving lives. Kidero’s phil-anthropy is also not small change. She, like her company, operates in the big league.
Besides leading the foundation’s philanthropic activities in Africa, Kidero also spearheads the company’s initiative to economically empower five million women worldwide by 2020. Known as the 5BY20 program, it provides finance to women who want to start a business linked to Coke, such as retailing or recycling. So far Kidero has raised more than $116 million in funding for the initiative.
She also guided Coca-Cola in forging a $100 million partnership with the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, to provide women entrepreneurs in Eurasia and Africa with easier access to finance.
At the foundation, Kidero’s port-folio is not limited to entrepreneurship; she also focuses on water, health and education, the most pressing needs of African communities.
Back in the day, Coke stuck to conventional charity-based philanthropy. But as non-governmental organiz-ations began pushing for more sustainable ways of assisting the poor, big companies like Coke could not afford to be caught napping. The multi-national caught on quickly, and so did its corporate responsibility programs.
“We said: we need a more focused way of doing this. Our best way of doing this is by empowering the community. How do we do this? Whatever we do, the initiative becomes the res-ponsibility of the community.
“So the foundation came about bec-ause we were trying to consolidate all the different parties that were doing charity work. We said: if we bring all of that together, we will be even more powerful. The biggest thing was putting a strategy in place that was going to be sustainable,” she explains.
Kidero believes philanthropy is vital for Coca-Cola because the company cannot thrive if the communities in which it operates do not thrive. She says Coke chooses projects to invest in based on their relevance for both its overall business and for the community concerned.
In 2013, the foundation spent just under $11 million on projects – 63% went to water, 33% to health and 4% to youth development. Kidero says it is planning to spend a similar amount in 2014.
Providing water access and preserving reservoirs consume the bulk of funding for Coke’s projects. Its goal is to replenish every drop of water it uses during the manufacturing process. This of course is because the company has been at the center of several disputes with environmental groups over conserving scarce resources.
The company is often criticized for its high water consumption in regions where water is scarce. In 2006, campaign group War on Want accused Coca-Cola of drinking India dry. Farmers in Ragasthan were unable to irrigate their fields after the company built a bottling plant in the area. Also in India, a Coke plant in Kerala was forced to close down after it allegedly contaminated local water supplies.
In 2008, the multinational set targets to improve its water efficiency by 20%. In 2011, it used 293.3 billion lit-ers of water to make 135 billion liters of product, giving it a water-use ratio of 2.16 liters per liter of product.
In Africa, where the lack of clean drinking water is a real concern, the company has been involved in 42 projects in 27 countries to reduce, rec-
ycle and replenish water supplies.
The Replenish Africa Initiative (Rain) is backed by a $30 million commitment from the Coca-Cola Company and other donors. It aims to provide more than two million people in Africa with access to drinking water by 2015. Kidero is planning to bring additional partners on board so that Rain becomes a $60 million initiative.
On the health front, malaria and HIV are a big focus for the foundation.
“In (South Africa’s) Eastern Cape, we are working with (NGO) Africare on a soup-to-nuts complete HIV prevention and treatment program. What we are trying to do there is create a model where we can actually show that over time we (reduce HIV)… We can then take it to government found-ations and say, ‘this model works, it has been validated’,” Kidero says.
The foundation also pumps money into education on the continent through initiatives that improve teachers’ skills.
Over and above her professional responsibilities, Kidero has her own fund. The Zawadi Africa Educational Fund provides young African women from disadvantaged backgrounds with scholarships to Ivy League universities. To date it has awarded 230 scholarships, valued at more than $45 million.
“I believe Africa is special, even with all our challenges. Africa has given me my identity. Africa has given me my confidence. I have a huge extended family; that is how we are in Africa… Africa is in full Technicolor. If you go elsewhere, it is muted.”

Share the feeling

BOS co-founders Grant Rushmere and Richard Bowsher don’t sweat the small stuff. They like to think big. When they launched BOS Brands in 2010, their ambition was to conquer the $70 billion global ice tea market. They are well on the way.
It’s not a modest goal. The two businessmen are taking on some of the world’s biggest beverage houses that currently dominate the market—Coca Cola, Unilever, Nestea, Lipton—with an ice tea based on Rooibos, South Africa’s indigenous herbal tea.
<div id="attachment_2306" style="width: 221px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2306" class="size-medium wp-image-2306" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/000_DV1114614-211x300.jpg" alt="" width="211" height="300" />FBL-ENG-PR-MANUTD-STOKE</div>
Their dream became possible when two major investors trusted their vision. Former Manchester United football manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, was the company’s first major backer, taking a 10% stake in BOS even before it launched the first product.
It was a lucky break. Rushmere, who is friends with the South African wife of Ferguson’s son, Mark, had met the famous football boss several times socially. When Rushmere showed him the BOS prospectus on a trip to London, Ferguson immediately showed interest.
“We have been benefiting from Sir Alex’s amazing leadership capability since then. He brings a great venture capitalist perspective to the company and helps with investor analysis as well as optimizing the business model and cash flow,” says Bowsher.
A year later, venture capital firm Invenfin—the Remgro Group’s investment arm, which is chaired and controlled by well-known South African billionaire Johann Rupert—invested another 20% in BOS.
Rupert, who founded Switzerland-based luxury goods company Richemont that owns top global labels, including Cartier, Van Cleef &amp; Arpels and Montblanc, is the ideal partner to guide BOS in building its brand, says Rushmere.
“They are the ultimate godparents, if you like. They’ve gone out and done it and are very keen to help the next generation, without being pushy,” he says.
The fact that Invenfin approached them, and not the other way around, was a real coup for BOS.
“They are a big picture investor that is looking for global opportunities, headquartered in South Africa. And they have the track record and the war chest to back it,” says Bowsher.
Ferguson and Invenfin didn’t invest lightly. Their moves were carefully calculated.
The ice tea segment, which makes up 12% of the global soft drink market, is growing 8% annually and forecast to grow more than 40% over the next five years.
The idea to take on the global ice tea market with a Rooibos-based product came from Rushmere, who had already developed the Afro Coffee &amp; Tea brand.
“Rooibos’ natural sweetness makes it the ideal carrier for fruit flavors while its healthy, healing properties are increasingly recognized locally and internationally,” he says.
Another unique selling point was to create an authentically African product: the Rooibos plant only grows in a specific region within South Africa and nowhere else in the world.
<div id="attachment_2308" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2308" class="size-medium wp-image-2308" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/bos-photos-full-12-1-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />Richard Bowsher</div>
“There is, for example, a major trend for Asian green teas globally because people want the authenticity. The trend is to move away from generic brands,” says Rushmere.
In 2009, when a friend introduced him to Bowsher, who was farming organic Rooibos in the Cederberg mountains, about 300 kilometers north of Cape Town, the two decided to team up.
Apart from organic tea leaves, Bowsher, who built up an international media company in San Francisco with offices in the US, Tokyo and Britain before returning to South Africa in 2000, brought serious business skills and global experience to the table.
Rushmere, meanwhile, knew the European market well, where he had marketed his Afro Coffee &amp; Tea brand.
“We are quite used to beating Americans and Europeans at their game. We are not intimidated. We see Coca Cola, Unilever and Pepsi as direct competitors,” says Bowsher.
The two entrepreneurs certainly have chutzpah.
“When we launched the product, our goal was, from the start, to become a global beverages company. We have a distinct strategy and execution plan around how to do that,” Bowsher says.
In mid-2010, they went to market with a first range of BOS ice teas—five flavors—in South Africa. The beverage is organic and has no preservatives or colorants. Its contemporary branding made it stand out from other ice teas available.
“We want to show that healthy can be fun,” says Rushmere.
Within the first year, BOS distributed to over 1,200 outlets in South Africa, including major retailers Woolworths, Pick n Pay, Spar, Makro and Engen shops.
The next step was to launch different packs and sizes. BOS started selling a one-liter value pack in 2012, once they established a foothold in the retail environment, says Rushmere. In mid-2013, a re-sealable 500 milliliter plastic bottle was launched as an on-the-go convenience pack.
In November, BOS will take on the energy drink market by launching a Rooibos-based energy drink in three different flavors, taking on big names like Gatorade and Energade.
The global expansion is well under way too. Earlier this year, BOS started operations in Belgium and the Netherlands, as the first step of the company’s global expansion plan.
Although they are two geographically small countries, the move cannot be underestimated. The Benelux region is a $1 billion ice tea market where a person drinks on average ten liters of the beverage per year. That is massive compared to South Africa, where the average annual consumption per capita is below one liter.
“From there, our strategy is to expand further into Europe; to France, Italy, Germany and Spain, all massive ice tea markets,” says Rushmere.
“After that, we’ll tackle the world’s biggest ice tea markets, the United States, China and Japan.”
If all goes according to plan, South Africans will be able to cool down with a BOS ice tea when walking along the Great Wall of China in 2023.

Tag: Coca Cola

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

The World’s Most Valuable Brands 2019: Apple On Top At $206 Billion

Coca Cola South Africa Improves SME Role In Value Chain

When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Millions

Oh Mo! Here Comes A New Cola

Share the feeling

Sir Alex Takes Tea In Africa