Afro Butchery is a chain store butchery shops in Gaborone, Botswana. It is a family owned company with four site shops around Gaborone. The shops are strategically located in Broadhurst, Bontleng, Mogoditshane and Gaborone Station. Mr Nyanguru is the founder and his immediate family owns the brand rights. The man was originally from Malawi and he is late.
Afro Butchery specializes in selling frozen meat. They mainly sell beef and chicken products. Their butchery shops also have the catering-takeaway section. They do processing on a small, very limited scale.
The best suited strategy for the Afro Butchery would be a hybrid mix of predominantly line Extension coupled with Brand Extension strategy. Afro Butchery is the Corporate Brand and meat products are its product brands and their service levels is their service brand. “Essentially, a line extension is any type of change or perceived improvement on an already existing product line. By leveraging the parent brand’s name and resonance, products are given a more competitive edge when depending on line extensions as opposed to a new brand name”. UCT Brand Management course notes. The brand is popular for frozen meat and their delicious BBQ sausage. Afro Butchery tagline is “mateng teng” literally translated in to English meaning “offals are available”. The brand remained true to the tagline from inception to date.
The butchery processing section produces arguably the best tasting quality sausage in town, this is without any shadow of doubt. Their Chakalaka version is not bad either. With little market research the line of sausages can be extended to include other flavor using different ingredients. My simple argument without much research is that most people today have stomach ulcers and related diseases and/or conditions. The same people are on special diet recommended by medical physicians. Chakalaka and Barbeque are a bit on the hot and spicy side of things, so country and other original flavor could perform well in the market.
The introduction of a strong processing unit at one of the strategically best positioned location could pay dividends. The unit could look into Voruos production, sausage production in large scale for original well known flavor like Hungarian, Italian Mild and Hot sausages and perhaps the English sausage since Botswana has a large influence of the English culture. The processing section could try polonies and canned beef productions. Processed cold meat can become a big untapped market for the Afro Butchery brand as well. Gaborone is flooded with both corporate and social functions and gatherings or events almost every day the brand needs to tap into this market. The market potential is humongous. The customer base could be huge with big financial opportunity gains. The success rate chances are also high.
The Brand Extension could include the Afro butchery brand property division modeling around the McDonalds business model. “A brand extension strategy is used to enter a new product category using an established brand name. These new product categories do not necessarily need to be related to existing product categories in the brand’s portfolio” UCT Brand Management course notes. This approach would allow the brand to make huge profits from real estate and property rentals. The Afro Butchery has a big chance of vertical integration and amassing huge profits and great brand equity value from the system. These extension line are rightly extendable and are “on brand” not “off-brand” as per branding and Marketing expert Sasha Strauss. Video 1: Keeping brand extensions “on brand”.
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mnkAFdwY0o)
Why this strategy and approach? What are the benefits?
I think both the vertical and horizontal extension line would apply in the Afro Butchery anticipated model and approach. The sausage lines would attract almost similar prices while polonies and canned beefs would attract a different set of price much higher than the sausage and Russians line of products. The two would obviously in harmony with the brand chosen strategy.
I will propose this strategy to the Afro Butchery management team and trust they will approve it.