Bel Group Chairman and CEO Antoine Fiévet today, in the presence of Côte d’Ivoire ad France officials, visit the Bel plant in Abidjan to make The Laughing Cow® cheese. The innovative site, which marks the company’s first industrial installation in Sub-Saharan Africa, will produce The Laughing Cow® for the Ivorian market. The move marks another step for the Bel Group on the African continent, where it is enjoying buoyant growth, with sales advancing 8% in 2015.
The purpose of the plant, located in Abidjan’s Yopougon industrial zone, is to supply the Ivorian market with The Laughing Cow®, while putting production of the cheese close to consumers. With a production capacity that meets current market needs, the site represents the first step in developing the brand in the Côte d’Ivoire. All locally produced portions of The Laughing Cow® will be marketed in Ivorian territory.
An innovative industrial model
The Abidjan Laughing Cow® plant is a first. In three years’ time, Bel teams answered a true industrial challenge by miniaturizing in the extreme the production of processed cheese portions. This unique site thus combines Bel’s cheese-making knowhow with its manufacturing expertise.
Bel’s engineering teams designed the novel plant, then assembled and tested it at the company’s Research and Innovation center in Vendome, France. It was then shipped to the Côte d’Ivoire in 14 containers. Just two months after the containers arrived in the country, the plant was assembled and production was started up.
“This unique plant demonstrates once again Bel’s singular expertise in the field of miniaturization and the innovative capacity of our manufacturing teams,” said Huber Mayet, General Manager of Manufacturing and Technical Operations, Research and Innovation at Bel. “Today, we produce 100,000 portions of cheese every day with the same food quality and safety standards found at all Bel Group plants. It’s a technological feat, but it’s also the result of a successful skills transfer between the French teams and the 12 employees of the Côte d’Ivoire plant, which is now operating fully autonomously.”
This new industrial model reflects Bel’s initiative for continuous progress in innovation.
The Laughing Cow®, an iconic brand in the Côte d’Ivoire
Present on the African continent for over 50 years, and with more than two billion single-serving portions sold in Africa in 2015, The Laughing Cow® is the preferred cheese brand of families in many African nations, such as Morocco, Algeria, Côte d’Ivoire, and Senegal.
The African market is supplied by three production sites located respectively in Morocco, Algeria and Egypt.
“It’s truly a pleasure to inaugurate Bel’s first manufacturing site in West Africa, here in Abidjan today,” said Antoine Fiévet, the Bel Group’s Chairman and CEO. “It’s a new milestone for us on the African continent, which has historically been a growth market for Bel. Our strategy calls for producing our products as close to our consumers as possible, as soon as that’s possible. With this new site, we can supply the Côte d’Ivoire market and keep a manufacturing lead-time. That’s the rationale for this project, which would not have been possible without the support of Ivorian officials and our local partners.”
Bel sells its products in 44 African countries. In 2015, the Group’s sales grew 8% organically in the Greater Africa region, where Bel employs more than 3,500 people.
Key facts and figures about the Abidjan plant
Production started December 15, 2015
Plant makes The Laughing Cow® cheese portions
It can produce 20 million cheese portions per year
The plant represents an investment of €3 million
The plant currently employs 12 people, and is expected to employ 20 persons in 2016.
The plant spans 4,200 square meters of land
14 containers.
