 This is not an automated multimillion factory. That started from a garage. How inspirational, man. I'm Richard E. J., the CEO of Casa Preco. After hearing the entire story of Casa Preco, it makes me feel like the story of everything is possible in Africa, Casa Preco really represent that story. Because, you know, I normally interview people and people normally say that, oh, 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 Casa Preco? No, certainly. I mean, there are lots of 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. 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. I will. Certainly, a magnificent factory that most people that see it are very surprised. So I will certainly take you inside. 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 preform is 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. So this is our preform section. Okay. This is the first Ghanaian company producing preforms in Ghana. And that's all we produce here before we switch this into bottom. You see, I've been to a company that import this. So I'm super excited to see that in my country, they produce this in here. So I guess I need to tell the Somaliland company that it's time for it to start buying from China and buying from Ghana. For sure. That's a good business here. I hope I'm going to get my share. Wow. And these guys are the one producing it? Yes. So we have engineers over here on the machine. We have a lot of guys here. What is the preforms to make sure that there's some good quality? And we are running 24 hours. 24 hours? 24 hours. So you make your strict process? Yes. So we have the work eight hours and then we switch. Oh wow. Nice to meet you man. Can I see the produce going and production going on? Yeah. Wow. So you can see these two machines, we have got the same two machines and we are going to put them in commercial. Oh. So you're going to do the production here in commercial too? Yes. Nice. The same preforms in commercial as well. So supply is commercial back here. All the preforms are made over here. Okay. All the material is made over here. Oh wow. It goes up through the pipes. It's not all the way here to the melting machine and there's some oil inside this machine. Let's put an injection machine and the preforms. The preforms? Yes. We melt and then we form the... Definitely it has to come out hot. Does it melt it? It has to come out hot. Wow. It has to come out hot. So after this, one last... After this, then we transfer the preforms onto the bottom line inside. So I'll show you the bottom line as well. All right. CO2 production unit. So when you open the soft drinks, the fizzy when you see inside or you feel when you drink, it's called CO2. And we produce our own CO2 here. We also sell to the market. So we sell to Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Agrabriway, so many other companies that also buy from us. So what at all you don't produce here? Because it's very easy to... Try to produce everything there. It doesn't produce oxygen. Oxygen is free, you know. So we'll take you inside the factory. What are these tanks for? So these tanks are storage tanks. So we store water, alcohol, syrup in here. Concentrates in these tanks. Wow. It's beautiful, man. Now it's time to enter the production plant. I guess this is what each and every one of you have been waiting for. Come with us, yeah? And then there's a brain hole. Stop doing these preforms into bottles before filling. So we can go and I'll show you how the bottles are filled. No problem. So the noise is here in the brain of the bottle. Down the air. You know, in the bottle. So we put whatever shape of potting into the brain hole. The brain will do it. There's a water that's cooling the bottles. After cooling it, you see a pillar here. Wow. So there's 25,000 bottles filling machine an hour. 25,000 bottles an hour. An hour? Yes. So this machine is filling all the bottles by the air. And this is, I believe, um, royal apple, which is a strawberry. How do you guys produce it up right here? And here we have some in line. So there's just one line that you're seeing here. Let's go through the line. The same factory but seven production lines? Yes, yes. The same factory. So which means, like, let's talk about the sub-drain that you're producing. In a day, since it's producing, um, 25,000 bottles an hour. 25,000 bottles an hour. So we've got a pot. And we have about 16 in a pot. So we're getting about 40,000 pots in a day. Just from this line. After filling and filling, the bottles then move all the way to the left lane machine. These are the labels you see here. When the labels go in the room, first up, and we have two heads for the labeling. We have two heads to match the 25,000 bottles on our screen. Then after labeling, it goes all the way to the strength parking. You can see the strength parking over here. In this machine, the machine is parking the bottles into 16. So that's 16 in a pot. You can also do 12 or 8 or whatever you want. But you put 16 in this particular day. And after putting it into the 16, you match it. How much is air in the 16? I really want to test one. That's what you can say. I have to test now. Thank you. After it's parking into the 16, you have to find a wrapper down here that shrinks all the pot into a one pot. But you see, after here it also knows it's like heating tunnel. And when they're heating tunnel again? They're just heating tunnel. Oh! That's true. To make it tight. Can I touch it? There's not a lot. You can touch it. You can touch it. And there's a bottle here for you to also take. Oh! See? That's what I have for you. I'm definitely taking this home. I just touch it to... Chuck, whether it's hot or not, but it doesn't look hot because it's really cool. It's really cool. It's really cool. The water drink is really cool. Oh, okay. The water drink is really cool. Wow. Yep. Put it in the garden. Yeah. I hope I didn't mess... Oh, this is from here. I'll test it. I'll test it. I'll test the water out here, man. Even the hot water can't make it. I'm gonna test it. It's hot so hot. It's really hot out here. Whoa! Made in Ghana, man. It tastes so fresh, man. We need to get apples in Ghana. That's all right. Somebody should stop growing apples in Ghana, yeah? So that you'll find a lot of healthy apples in Ghana, too. That's all right. That's all right. So these are some of the things that we feel the youth and the younger people can also take advantage of some of the raw materials. And they're not able to get in Ghana. So... The youth can get into farming and get it right here in Ghana. I wanna ask you a question. Which means that you're selling this because you know that there are opportunities in the country. Exactly. What are the things that you think the youth of this country can involve in? Oh, so I think a major factor in Ghana that the youth can get involved in is that work sector. That work sector is so huge. And for me, I would encourage the youth to get in that work sector because once you start any farming business you employ so many people, especially within the community. It's always encouraging when you go to a farm. See all these women and all these men farming the product. So I think I've written something that youth can get into. And that's why we import so much stuff into Ghana. Even on the purple side, on the animal side, there's still a lot of import that are coming into Ghana. Because of these things, the youth can get into and start a living for themselves. Ladies and gentlemen, so after this work, next do we go? You see the palatizer? There's the palatizing machine. Gaps are just packed into a pallet. And it's all automated. What automated? This is not an automated multimillion factory. That started from a garage. How inspiration I am, man. Wow. So today, the kitchen that we produce and blend everything. And I will introduce the chef, which is Florin Chek, Sylvie Florin Chek. Hi. Sorry, everything that happens here. He's telling me that this is the kitchen and if you go to a kitchen and there's a woman in there, you know that they got the best food. Sure, sure, sure. Can you tell me more about your kitchen? What is in here? Yeah, my kitchen is fully automated. No human intervention and witness is automated. You can't see the pipeline here. We don't transport the appliances. Based on the back side, piloting of the factory. On the straight, we defend the requirements by the recipe into the tank. This can be in bad quality for the association. In terms of cleaning, we have here a system that is fully automated and it cleans the system, turn the products that they make. So ensure that the products can do for human consumption. I'm explaining the question. In terms of cleaning, we do system cleaning as scheduled in the plant. According to our efforts, we stand that in high standard. Thank you. So come in here. 100 percent. 100 percent you. So we are doing a milk and a juice product. So this is milk and strawberry. Time is producing at 9,000 an hour. 9,000 bucks an hour. This is the smallest line over here actually. In this product, we are also producing and exporting. Not only, we are not selling only exporting as well. It's so good in Burkina Passo as well. Produce this in garden. Oh yeah. And it tastes very good. It tastes very good. Do you put in a straw in garden too? No, we don't put in a straw. We don't put in a straw. We don't put in a straw. No, we don't put in a straw. We don't put in a straw, don't worry. By the time I leave here, I think I'll be full, you know. I'm so sorry. Yeah. That's right. Yeah, let's go. We can go. Cuttings do you put this in a day? But when it comes to this one? This one we are doing about 7,000 cuttings a day. 7,000 cuttings a day. Oh, okay. Do you know the straw machine? The straw machine right there. And when you come you see the parking machine? This is you. And this parking is here. What is put in the boxes? So are these boxes for this year? Yeah, these boxes are for this year. My royals don't sit at companies. We make boxes for a gated box. What do we call for a gated boxes? Back and boxes that we use for our supply. To put in the upgrades and other companies. We manufacture the boxes in here? Yes, we do manufacture here. So I want to know like in the day, how many boxes do you people produce in here? Okay, in the day our forgetter is able to do 300 meters per minute. So we run 12 hours in a day. So if we are going to calculate, in turn age we are able to do about 200 hours in a day. Whoa, that's huge. So I mean the people that works on the production, are there ganiers? Yes, everybody here is ganiers. Because this is the ganiers company. So we employ them. And what is the duty in here? I am the general manager for technical operations. So you saw the 25,000 bottles an hour line. Exactly. This is the biggest line, the 35,000 bottles an hour line. So you can see how far the bottles have been here. So this is the biggest 35,000 per hour? That we have here. And what is the lowest you have here? We have 9,000 bottles an hour. Oh, the other one that you showed me. Ask us a question. We are bringing the biggest line in West Africa. 80,000 bottles an hour line. When you bring that, let me come here to commission it. No problem, I will write it in here. Do you know how I feel now? I feel like I am a baby in a candy shop. But I am seeing everything and I want to touch. Yes, yes, yes. You can touch, you can touch. Whoa. I mean this is more like creating employment for the people living in Ghana. That's true. Yeah. So the focus of the problem, I mean employment is certainly a very key part of that. So investment, you always talk about investment. And we all encourage other Ghanaians to also invest in Ghana. And there are certain opportunities here that is market here. Let me ask you a question. Why is this so important for Ghanaians to invest in Ghana? I mean the main thing, why do we need to invest in Ghana? I mean, we all know what to do. Ghana is our country. If we go invest in Ghana, what are the people going to do? You understand? We always keep talking about people going to school, coming out and not having jobs. So I mean entrepreneurs in Ghana need to invest in Ghana, need to show that what is out there in the Western world can also be done in Ghana. I remember that my dad was telling me that when the first time he went to Germany to buy this machine, the children's canyons cannot run these machines. You understand? But he wanted to make a point, bring the machine, and we trained canyons to send them to Germany. And our canyons are running these machines over here. Giving jobs, feeding people, so I believe that opportunities are certainly in Ghana and people need to take advantage. We don't always have to wait for foreigners to come and invest in our country for us. Eventually, they'll obviously take the money outside to get them to see the world off. But you don't think that most of us are set up our mind in a sense that when you hear the word investor, you see it to be flowing. That's the negative part. Looking from the government sector, everything. When you hear investor, people are always thinking about the foreign investors. But the government and the Ghanaian people should also support the local investors, the Ghanaian investors, the African investors. That is also putting a lot of money within its own homeland. As an entrepreneur in Ghana, somebody who is investing in Ghana, you need a lot of capital before you're able to invest in Ghana? Okay, so from our side at this scale, we rely on the banks to take some facilities to invest in the company. Sometimes, we certainly say that the interest rate in Ghana is quite high. So funding is quite expensive. But it used to be about 20, 25, but now over the past few years, it's been coming down, starting in 2020, which is so high. Thank you. Certainly, we hope the government will still keep working and pushing to bring it down to the single-digit us and our hope that the country can get... I mean, what kind of single-digit are you looking for? Nine is still high. Nine is still high. I mean, in Europe, you're looking at the three. In the US, you're looking at 4%. So something around that rate will certainly be a fantastic for Ghana. But what I'll say is for entrepreneurs, you don't always have to start on a big scale. I showed you how my father started. He started in the small way. So you don't have to go for big money or big capital. It's not in the small way. And eventually, your business will grow. And I'm telling you that once you see the growth, the banks themselves will keep on facing after you to give you more funding to grow your business. Keyway. What kind of lab is that? We do all the testing over here for our product. Even after blending, the lab guys will take it and bring it here to test before bottling to make sure that the parameters are all right. And also, even on the line, once you're producing, every 30 minutes, the lab guys take a bottle, bring it up here to test all the parameters and make sure all the parameters meet the specifications that we've said we are going to produce. Mr. Richard, there's one thing that I want to know. If you go to every company, there's one product that stands out. I really want to find out here at Casa Pueco, what is that special product that made a company? What it is today? Okay. So for Casa Pueco, Alomoby Test, what has made the company what it is today? Alomoby Test. Yes, the popular Alomoby Test. Alomoby Test is made by Casa Pueco. Yes, it's made by Casa Pueco. And it's good news right here in the spot, which I will show you. Okay, Alomoby Test, as I said, it's our biggest brand for us over here. And that's what has made a company today. It's the biggest exported drink. From Ghana to the world. So Alomoby Test is also made of herbs that we take directly from the forest and we put it in the room. So there are a lot of medicinal benefits. So after enjoying, you're also doing what? Eating a lot of medicine in you. So Alomoby Test, we produce all our favorite product over here. And so here they are producing the whiskeys, they are producing the jeans, they are producing another new brand from Black Rock and Whiskey. That we produce here. So Alomoby Test, I mean, as you can see, we produce there right here. In the market, over here. This is like more like a fast food thing, yeah? Yes, in terms of, I'll say, in terms of convenience, the market is the way to go for us. So we have the bottles, we have the market, which is very easy for people to take anywhere they go. So how much will, something like this cost? One city in Ghana. One city for everyone, yeah? What's interest? So production and palletizing. The four little guys pick the pallets and come and store them in our warehouse over here. And over here, we're able to store over close to 500,000 cases of products over here. So this is our warehouse, where all the products you see in Ghana are shipped for. Wow. So, I mean, apart from selling in Ghana, this same thing you export, this same warehouse, you pick all the exports products into Togo, Nigeria, South Africa, Liberia, Europe, and the Americas. All the products come from here. I want to know, you lived abroad before, right? Yes. What were you doing there? So I just went to school in the US. I was there for about four years. Did my undergrad and my master's over there. And I did some small work. Hans, I was doing my master's in university. I did my master's in management. And I did my MBA in finance and global business. And after that, why would you come back? So after that, I decided to come back, join the family business and go it. Because I feel, I mean, as Ghanians, we always need to come back to go our country and our economy. And I believe there's always, there's always opportunity here in Ghana for us to go. And as I told you, for me, when I came back, the business was only into spirit and alcoholic products. But we've been able to go the business, including the beers, soft drinks, water. So there's opportunity here in Ghana. So anybody that's living out there, you have to know that certainly there's opportunity in Ghana. And once you come here, you certainly make it. Once you have the right mindset and the zeal to grow yourself, your business, and as well the nation. I have one question to ask you. If you have the chance to change one thing in the country, Ghana, what would that then be? If I have one thing to change in Ghana, for me, I would say that there should be more pick up businesses in Ghana. Education is also very key. So for me, I would say that there should be more investment in education, getting people educated, and also changing the mindsets of people in Ghana. A lot of people may go to schools, coming out thinking they want to work in other businesses. But I think we need to change our mindsets into more entrepreneurial to make sure that once you come out, you don't want to work for a company that is employing 10,000 people. You can start your own business and also employ what, two people, three people. So if you have at least 10,000 people employing one, two, three people, you have what? Almost 30,000 people right now. So that's the mindset that I feel that if Ghanaians can change and become more entrepreneurial, we should be a fear venturing into business. We should have that zeal. What is the major challenge running such a huge business here in Ghana? The major challenge? I think in Ghana, one of the major challenges we spoke about already, raw material sometimes, it's difficult to get in Ghana. So there's a lot of importational raw material. So that's one major challenge we find in Ghana. And I hope that one day, Ghanaians and there'll be other businesses that will invest in some of the raw materials we use here to produce. So I'll say that's one of the major challenges we have. Sometimes also, important things into the country is also a challenge, especially at a pot. And Ghana itself, we've seen in this pandemic, as we sit here, Ghana is waiting for vaccines. If the country has been able to invest on thoughts way back, that let's find people, let's find entrepreneurs that are into all these pharmaceutical stuff, we wouldn't be sitting here waiting for vaccines. So we need to do more things ourselves instead of relying on the Western world for a lot of things. Do you know Ghana's GDP? I believe Ghana's GDP is around 70 billion. And what is Kaseprako's contribution to Ghana's GDP? Certainly we should be a major part of the contribution in terms of GDP. My husband, for us alone, we are being close to 150 million dollars in terms of revenue. So we should be a major size of the GDP. But what I want to talk about is in Ghana, we are quite strong in the non-traditional exports. So as I said, Kaseprako is the number one in terms of beverage exports outside of Ghana. And we are contributing a sizeable amount close to, I believe close to 5% in terms of the non-traditional exports in Ghana if you take out the gold and the cocoa. What are you going to tell your lovely customers out there who consume Kaseprako everything? I think Kaseprako products and our consumers, I would certainly say that we've been supported by the consumers over the past 30, 33 years. We always try to come up with new things for Kaseprako. Our consumers should look for more product from us. From us today, what I want to say is that we are coming out with our beer product, freedom beer. So consumers should look out for this brand and enjoy. And for the people out there to outside of Ghana, anytime you come into Ghana, don't forget to try the number one export product from Ghana. That's Alomobi Test. Thank you very much. Can somebody have a franchise of Kaseprako in their various countries? Why not? Why not? Anybody that's certainly interested in selling Kaseprako in the countries where they are based, you are very open to working with those people. I want to be the agent for that so that I can get that one percent. So that I can get that one percent. Thank you.