©Shutterstock 8 March 2020, New Delhi, India; Group of a hungry poor children are being feed by social workers in the global pandemic of corona virus. Free food for homeless people, distribution of food.
I’m pretty sure most Ghanaians have heard of the “Think Heart, Save a Child” project which is a collaboration between MTN Foundation (the philanthropic wing of MTN Ghana) and 3 Foundation (the philanthropic wing of TV3 Ghana) to help pay for the surgeries of children suffering from hole-in-heart conditions. By engaging in such philanthropic activities, companies want to prove to you that they are not here to always take from society but to give something back.
In Ghana, many poultry farmers complain that they find it difficult to sell broilers because they are unable to compete with foreign frozen chicken imports but I believe that corporate social responsibility (CSR) can be seamlessly integrated into the marketing effort to help improve brand perception of Ghanaian poultry products. Below, I indicate some CSR strategies which you can implement to establish your brand.
- Giving away free meals: Even though Ghana’s economy has shown steady growth and with more people being lifted out of poverty than ever before, there are still some segments of the population, especially children who find it hard to come by good nutritious food so as part of company policy you can decide to allocate let’s say 5% of company profits to do a Christmas party involving maybe some jollof rice and Ghanaian chicken every year for needy children. This way, people would associate buying your product with a greater societal good rather than just making you richer.
- Training women on sustainable agriculture: Perhaps you would love to prepare your own feed to cut some costs. You must understand that the cost of feed depends on the prices of commodities such as maize and soybean so it could be a great strategy to grow the crops yourself instead of purchasing them. And one way to positively impact your community is to set up a farm which employs women, especially widows and other from disadvantaged backgrounds to explore environmentally sustainable ways of planting the crops using other alternatives such as composting to conventional farming methods.
- Contributing to relief efforts: For instance, during the early stages of the pandemic when lockdown measures were enforced, many companies donated food items, PPEs, etc. to communities which have had devastated economies due to the lockdown measures. Poultry farmers can also play their roles during crisis periods by donating items to help lessen the impact of such catastrophes.
Conclusion
We want people to eat made in Ghana chicken but how do we explore strategies to help attach greater importance to our products rather than just patriotism? The answer is simple – corporate social responsibility.
Pkom 