By Kefiloe Kajane
With increasing urbanization and mobility, consumers in Africa are looking for products that offer the best value for money, such as bulk packs, discounted products, and smaller packs.
‘Mantṧebo Ranyali and her husband took advantage of this to start their company Maseru Packs. They started the company in 2019, and it now has two branches in Maseru and Butha-Buthe. The company specialises in packaging all kinds of products, from hospitality to agriculture and everyday packaging.
In an interview with theReporter, Ranyali said during her stay in South Africa, every time she came home to Lesotho her family would always ask her to bring packaging material. She said, that to her, made her realise the gap of packaging in the country and developed a business idea right there.
She indicated that they get their packaging material from South Africa but have printing in-house which they only just have recently introduced.
“Our ultimate goal is to actually produce them ourselves but I think we are on our way there as we have recently invested in a printing machine.
“It is a challenging job but, because of social media, it becomes easier as the advertising becomes easier that way. We also have another store in Butha-Buthe and we are also planning to branch out to Mohale’s Hoek as well but because of Covid19 and lockdowns we were delayed. It is our dream to branch to the other districts in the coming years,” Ranyali said.
She indicated that they are one of the few people who do packaging in the country and they love the healthy competition because it pushes them to do better.
She pointed that the competition has made them care more and pay even more attention to their customers as they do not want them to go anywhere else.
According to Ranyali, the support of her family is the reason why her business has been thriving as they have her best interests at heart when it comes to business.
“We currently have about 10 people that we have employed permanently and most of them are my family members. We had tried before to hire strangers but you will realise that they really do not care what’s best for you and your company, so we decided to keep it in the family,” she explained.
Maseru specialises in all kinds of packing being agriculture related, hospitality and many other kinds of packaging. They can be found at BEDCO building shop number 14.
The Africa packaging market is expected to reach a CAGR of 8.4 percent during the forecast period (2021 – 2026). The market is driven by an expanding population of youthful consumers, increased demands for consumer products, burgeoning individual incomes, and growing domestic economies-particularly those in East, South and West Africa.
