Zimbabwe grocery procurement keeps the pulse ticking

GARETH COSTA Sub Saharan Africa is the new frontier of opportunity, and with little time to waste in this era of rapid global growth, the services of airfreight specialist Fastpulse are in constant demand. John Evans, Fastpulse MD, says that this year volumes overall are up 40%, with mining equipment transfers into the company's main East African hub in Nairobi the biggest growth area. But consolidations and grocery procurement into Zimbabwe are not far behind. “We didn’t actively seek it, but by word of mouth the Zimbabwean grocery procurement has grown by 80 to 90% this year and I’m probably going to have to employ more people to cope because for the time being it looks like it’s here to stay,” says Evans. Currently Fastpulse operates weekly line flights into Nairobi, Lagos, Freetown Sierra Leone and Harare, utilising charter flights for onward transport to less accessible places. The company also regularly charters direct flights to Maputo, Blantyre, Kinshasa, Lubumbashi, Dar es Salaam and the mining town Geita in Tanzania. “On a more ad hoc basis over the past three months we have also picked up good United Nations sub-contracted charter business for the movement of security personnel, food aid and a variety of equipment into Juba, southern Sudan,” says Evans. While airfreight is their specialty, Evans says when necessary they also subcontract cross border road freight into Africa and undertake customs clearance for a certain number of their customer base.