Rhodes Food Group is the second local supplier on Massmart’s new export programme to get listed with Walmart US. The South African based canned food company will be supplying Walmart US with an initial order of three canned pear variations. These include premium export quality 425 gram cans of pear slices in heavy syrup, 425gram cans of pear halves in juice and 850gram cans of pear slices in heavy syrup. With South Africa having some of the world’s best canning fruit varieties, Walmart was impressed with the quality and taste of the pears from Rhodes Food Group.
This new export programme stems from discussions that took place at the 2019 World Economic Forum in Davos, between Minister of Trade and Industry Ebrahim Patel and the President and CEO of Walmart International Judith McKenna. The initiative also represents an extension of the Massmart Supplier Development mandate to include assisting local suppliers to access Walmart’s global markets.
Massmart CEO Mitchell Slape says “I am pleased that this new evolution of the Supplier Development Programme leverages Massmart’s relationship with Walmart and its global scale to find opportunities for local suppliers, both big and small, to export to Walmart’s retail markets around the world.”
The Walmart Global Sourcing team, supported by the Massmart Supplier Development Programme, initially met with 18 South African suppliers in September 2019. Following these meetings a total of seven suppliers were identified as having export potential to Walmart markets. Supplier products included I&J’s abalone and seafood, AVI’s Fresh Pack rooibos, Vinimark’s wines, Rhodes Foods’ tinned fruit, Distell’s wines, Green Farms’ macadamia nuts and Glenart’s Christmas crackers.
In January 2020 the team visited the seven high potential supplier’s farms to evaluate their end-to-end supply chains. During this visit Glenart, a local manufacturer of innovative confetti-popping crackers was listed to supply 800 Walmart US stores.
Rhodes Food Group were listed soon after this trip and we are hopeful of further listings during the coming weeks.
For Media Enquiries
Refilwe Boikanyo
Massmart Communication Manager
011 517 6041/ refilwe.boikanyo@massmart.co.za
About the Massmart Supplier Development Programme
The Supplier Development Programme was established by Massmart to create opportunities for small to medium manufacturing enterprises. The objective for the programme is to improve local procurement linkages for new and existing small businesses to be able to sustainably trade with Massmart.
About Walmart
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. operates Wal-Mart discount stores, supercenters, Neighborhood Markets and SAM’S CLUB locations in the United States. The multinational company also has operations in Africa, Asia, Central America, Europe, North America and South America.
