 Kasapreko is a household name in Ghana. Which means that wherever you go, you will definitely find products of Kasapreko. You know what, let me tell you something. Whatever you walk in the street of Ghana, you will definitely see people selling on the street and whatever they are selling, make sure you check it out because you will definitely find the awake mineral water from Kasapreko. Whenever you go to clubs in Ghana, people will enjoy themselves when they are lo mo bites. You know what, it's not just lo mo bites that you can find. Kasapreko has so many alcoholic beverages which you can find in clubs, especially Chobas. If you don't know what Chobas is, google it and you'll find it because when people want to eat more, all they need is a local gin and Kasapreko got you. The one thing I really cherish and love about musicians is that they really support the brand Kasapreko because whenever you see music videos, you will definitely find a lo mo bites. Big shout out to Shatawale for always promoting storm energy drink which is also from where Kasapreko. Anytime I take domestic flight, I mean Africa World Airline, you will definitely see awake mineral water in there and let me tell you something, whenever you buy one of these, 10%, it goes to the cardiac center of Kolobu which means that your money for your water is also healing people which is absolutely amazing. But hey, I really want to go to the streets of Ghana to ask them whether this product has been imported or this is made in Ghana or do they know the owners of this product here in Ghana. Boss, my name is Maya. What is your name? I'm Justice. Justice. I have just simple question to ask you. Both of them, which one is imported and which one is made in Ghana? The two of them is making in Ghana. The two of them is made in Ghana. By who? At this one, I don't know. At this one, I don't know. What about this one? At this one, I know it's Kasapreko. Hey, you know it's Kasapreko. I don't know the name of the product, these two. No, this is Alombo bites. Alombo bites. And it's made by Kasapreko. Kasapreko, yeah. This is also Awake. Awake. Made by Kasapreko. Okay. Okay. Now you know, yeah. Thank you. We finally made it to Ghana's biggest manufacturers and producers of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. Brothers and sisters, I just want to welcome you to Kasapreko. The CEO of Kasapreko. I don't know if I'm dreaming, you know, because I went out there, I asked more than 10 Ghanies and they don't know who you are. I know, I know, but that's where we are. But Kasapreko said household name in Ghana. Certainly, certainly. We try to promote the company itself other than ourselves over here. So, as you know, Kasapreko is a very big name in Ghana. But the people behind it, we are just behind the scenes. No, you are no longer behind the scenes because what am I is here. Hey, thank you. And what am I is here. Why the name Kasapreko? Okay, so Kasapreko is an account word that for the founder, he wanted to project the business as a Ghanian owned business and be proud of it. So out there, just like you hear Nike saying just do it, here in Ghana we say Kasapreko, speak at once that action. Let me know who you are, your name and where you from because a lot of people need to know who you are. I'm Richard Ej, the CEO of Kasapreko. I'm from Ghana too and I've been in the business for just over 10 years. See, I'm not trying to flatter you, but you look so young to be the CEO of Kasapreko. Because from my research, this company was established in the year 1989. Are you the founder? Are you the same person who founded the company? No, the company was founded by my dad. Dr. Kabneje, he's now the group chairman of the company and it's a family business. So we have siblings within the business and I'm the CEO of the beverage side. The other siblings are also managing other sectors within the group. You have to tell me something about your father that the world don't know. Okay, I'll tell you about Dr. Kabneje and how he started the business. He started the business with just five people with a very small tank and I'll show you the tank right here. And he started when he was at the age of what 33. So almost the same age as some of us over here. And he's inspired a lot of Garnians and as you see today Kasapreko from the age of 33 that he started is now a big company, a global company out here. But in 1989, how old were you during that time? Oh, I think I was two years. Did you see your father going through all the challenges established in this business? What is one of the greatest challenges that you saw when your dad started this? I think one of the greatest challenge when he started was basically he was a one-man show. So he was doing everything. If you talk to him, he'll tell you. He used to be the security man. He used to be the production manager. He used to be the accountant. He used to be the CEO. So he was doing everything on his own. But as the company grew, he then started employing qualified people to support him. But at that stage obviously he didn't have the money to employ all these qualified people to support. So now is one of his biggest challenge, juggling all the rules as a starter. He started, struggled, but eventually he made it. Before we continue, I want to see the first time that dad is used to establish the company. Follow me, I'll show you. I'll show you the tank. Thank you. Maya, so this is the tank that has made Kasapreko what it is today. As you can see here, this tank could, I don't know how many it could do in a day. Maybe 30 cases, maybe 50 cases. But now Kasapreko is producing more than 200,000 cases a day and selling all of it. So this tank has made us what we are today. And the first product we did was the Kasapreko Dry Gen, which was a gen made by a Ganyan and also enjoyed by Ganyans. And today Kasapreko Gen is the biggest gen in the country as we speak. But he started very small like this. Manuel would just five people, how warm out would this tank. Would this small tank? With this small tank. So how many curtains will he see producing back then? Oh, back then I believe this would have produced maybe about 50 curtains a day. And I mean it's amazing. From, I guess this will be from his backyard home or something like that. This was in the garage. In the garage. Started and I mean my mom was supporting he had some other family members that were also supporting producing this product that has made what we are today. Can you tell me that Kasapreko is now a multinational company? Oh yeah certainly Kasapreko is the also the biggest beverage company owned by a Ganyan in Ghana. And we are actually aspiring to be the biggest food and beverage company. Hopefully by this year or next year we will be the biggest food and beverage company in Ghana. And we also exports into many other countries especially in West Africa. So we are in Nigeria, we are in Togo, we are in South Africa. We are in Burkina, we are in Iron Coast, Liberia. So Africa we have a few countries that we export to. If we go to the US you certainly see a branch over there. Especially in areas that you see Africans or West Africans. You certainly see Alomobites which is the our number one product and our flagship product over here. So anytime you travel just go to a Ganyan community and I'll be surprised if you don't see Alomobites over there. I'm never going to check that out. But you know what I've seen the tongue and I'm seeing bottles right. Definitely daddy did not have a bottle manufacturing company during that time. Okay so during that time as he started he wouldn't even have imported bottles that we are using today. So he started with various bottles. So you see a pack or a case of from this tank. You see different different types of bottles but with the same product. And even the the the curtain back then. I'm sure you know he will put some of these bottles in let's say a case of box. You find different boxes and put it in and sell. And he will always tell you that the first day that the guys came back and they have sold 25 curtains that day was his happiest day. And today up till today he still remembers that day. So from that day we knew that Ganyans loved the product. He needed to put more effort into marketing into packaging. So Kasa Perkun then he then started putting effort into packaging. So he went ahead and developed his own bottle as the first Ganyan beverage company to also do that. So if you see a bottle you always see Kasa Perkun. And embossed on it. That's how he started bringing in his own bottle. So there used to be a bottle company in Ghana but it's no more. So now we import most of the bottles from other countries. I really want to know what does Kasa Perkun comprises of. Okay so Kasa Perkun what we do here is basically we position ourselves as the total beverage company. So we are doing water which you know Awake is our brand. And it's a charity brand as well. For Awake we try to basically give back to the society. So any bottle you buy we actually donate to the Cardio Center in Kuala Lumpur for the country to also get some money. To do some surgeries on cats with holes in the heart. And so that's the Awake brand that and that's our water brand. And then when it comes to the soft drinks we are doing cola drinks. We are doing apple drinks. We are doing orange drinks. So that's the soft drinks sector. We also do energy drinks, storm energy. It's our biggest brand in terms of energy drinks. We have malts and that's high five chocolate malts. It's a malt drink with a chocolate unit. And that's all to promote kind of let's say the cocoa in Ghana that we are producing. Come to the spirits we are producing Alomobites which is our biggest brand. We have Kasa Perkun right in itself. We have Lime Cordial. We have Carnival. And then we are also the franchise owners for the spell. So if you see Savannah, Hantes, which is a South African brand. We are the franchise owners with them over here. We also recently just introduced Freedom Beer. So in Ghana you see that all the beers are owned by multinationals. There's no player and that's a Ghanaian within that beer space. So we are trying to play into that beer space with our Freedom brand. So in the next couple of months you see Freedom also taking over the beer space. So give us some time. You see us over there. I'm definitely going to give you some time you know. So certainly these are some of the brands that we do. We are into wines as well. So we have Kasa Perkunic wine. And we also do import some wine from South Africa and bottle here as well. How many acres is this factory sitting on? Well this current factory we are sitting on a 10 acre factory. And initially as I said we started from my dad's house and this is the place we are now. And we also have another 10 acres in Kumase. That's our second factory which we just started last month. Actually we started about six months ago, six months ago for the Kumase factory. And the business is going and as is going we are even looking at starting some manufacturing in Nigeria and Liberia in the next couple of months. I don't know if I have to ask you this question. What is the worth of Kasa Perkun company limited? Oh so currently Kasa Perkun company limited I'll tell you in terms of revving. I'll tell you that last year we were able to do over 600 million and this year our target is to do 1 billion Ghana cities in revenue. If you change it into dollars you are looking somewhere around 160 million dollars in terms of annual revving. And basically that's what a company is generating. And how many people have you and put it so far because I'm seeing a lot of people in this factory. So this factory currently we are doing about 1,500 people and all of them are now in this factory. So we have sales guys all across the country. We have a factory in Kumase as well. And we have warehouses. We have some in Tamale, Tattura Debo, Techi Man in Kumase itself. So our employees are spread across the country. And we have a few guys in Nigeria as well working for us. But currently the people that are working here are all Ganyans. Yes, we have Ganyans. We have some other African guys over here. We have some Nigerians working here. We have some guys from Zimbabwe over here as well. This is one of the beautiful things that I love to hear to see Africans coming together to I mean work together as one. It's just beautiful you know. Talent, talent, we have the talent in Africa. We certainly have the talent. So entrepreneur should certainly tap into the talent in Africa. You'll be amazed to see the talent. Some of our best engineers are from Nigeria and Zimbabwe as I said over here. Papa, let's tell me your name and where you from? My name is Anthony, I'm from Nigeria. I do speak Nigeria. And you are working here in Kasaprako? Yes. As what? Working as automation engineer. Oh wow! We had experience from Nigeria and we started to bring it in together. Yes. We come in here since 2012 to help them service their machines. Now does it feel like working for Kasaprako? Oh, it's great. It's an honor to be here Kasaprako. It's one of the leading companies in West Africa. And it's homegrown. So it's an indigenous company and I'm proud to be one again. Hey, it's a match for talk interview. Yeah, the Zimbabwe guy that everyone is talking about. Yes. Okay, how long have you been working in here? I've been here for about two years now. About two years in the first place? Yeah, well, it's actually was something that I wanted to do, coming to Ghana and getting an opportunity to work here presented that opportunity for me to come to Ghana. And how does it feel like working in Ghana? It's good, it's good. Yes, Ghana is, it's an indigenous country. It's a nice country. So it feels good working in Ghana. And how does it feel like working in Kasaprako? Well, working in Kasaprako, it's, for me, I can say it was a dream come true because Kasaprako has got the technology that I wanted to know. I wanted to learn and it gave me that opportunity to get close to that technology. And as you have seen, Kasaprako, I think we are the best in Ghana. And we have the latest technology. If you want the latest technology, come to Kasaprako. And you will see that our facilities, everything that we have here is so class. I recently did a video in Somaliland about a beverage factory. And I realized that they were important, the, what do you call it? The preforms from another country. I want to know, I mean, you said you are the biggest in Ghana. Do you import or you manufacture it here? No, we manufacture our own preforms here. In Ghana? In Ghana, we manufacture our own preforms here. And we are the only Ghanaian company doing that here in Ghana. And it's actually also one of the biggest even manufacturing preforms. Manufacturing of preforms in Ghana over here. I will also ask you another question. You said daddy used to collect key soap boxes. Currently, are you producing the boxes in Ghana? Currently, we used to buy the boxes. But currently, we have our own manufacturing company also producing boxes that we also sell to other people in Ghana here. So which means from start to finish, everything is done in this country? For us, we are into a strategy of backwards integration. So we try to produce most of our raw materials here in Ghana so that we don't always have to rely on importation. And also reduce the pressure on the foreign currency. After hearing the entire story of Kasaparko, it makes me feel like the story of everything is possible in Africa, Kasaparko really represent that story. Because, you know, I normally interview people and people normally say that it's not possible in Africa you have to travel abroad before you make it and all of that. I just want to know, did daddy ever left the country before he was able to come up with this concept of Kasaparko? No, certainly. I mean, there are lots possibilities that can happen in Africa. For my father, he was in the West. So he grew up in the West in his village. He didn't even complete school. Please, are you trying to say daddy is a village boy? No. No, you can continue. I mean, from the village itself, he got inspiration from there that certainly from his village he has to come out and after he's made it, he's gone back to support them. And even before he started this factory, he had never travelled outside of Ghana before. So he got all the inspiration within Ghana itself. And as I said, he had a zeal to move out of the village and make it as a business person. So when he came to Accra, he did different jobs. I mean, from a taxi driver from working in restaurants, he had different jobs and eventually he went to go out and eventually moved into the beverage sector. And I mean, he tells me that even when he was a driver at Valko, he used to drive his kids into the most expensive international school in Ghana. And eventually he ended up taking his kids to that school in Ghana. So for inspiration wise, I'll say that he got most of inspiration within Ghana even before he stepped foot out of Ghana. I mean, did daddy completed school or he dropped off from school? For him, his parents did not have the money to take him to school. So I think after high school, he didn't continue. But through his hustle and other businesses, small businesses that he entered into, when he got some money, he tells me that he started even educating himself. So eventually he will do his own short, short courses somewhere else. To educate himself and get to know what is going out there. But he did not complete school. Even though education is very important, I believe that as businessmen and as entrepreneurs coming up, it's the zeal, it's the zeal that if you have it and you believe that you can do it, certainly push yourself and you certainly make it. Push yourself and you certainly make it. Let me know, like you're talking about your dad so much today, but I really want to know more about you. Which year did you take over the company? So officially I've been part of the company for almost 12 years. I came in 2010 to join the company. But I mean, as I was a kid, certainly I visited the factory most times on my vacations and stuff like that. So I always had the desire to certainly work with my dad and the family. But in 2015, I became the CEO of the business and as a CEO, certainly we have to go the business for the next generation as well. My dad was able to grow it to a certain stage. When he existed the company, we were only doing the spirits. So Alumu Bhuteshjin and other alcoholic drinks. When I came with the support of other family members, we moved into the water business aggressively. We started to solve drinks aggressively. We partnered with the spell to become the franchise owner of Savanna and Hantes over here. As I said, we started a beer business that we hope to grow, Freedom Beer. And we built a new factory in Kumase just six months ago. So certainly we've also contributed our quota and we'll keep going. We'll keep going. We are still young and we hope to also live a bigger business to the next generation that will come and take over. I would love you to take me around the factory because I know people out there really want to see what really goes on in the factory. Certainly, I will. It's certainly a magnificent factory that most people that see it are very surprised. So I will certainly take you inside. I want to say thank you so much and I'll see you in the next one. All right. Thank you.