New Aspuna Group Partnership Enables Nigerian Farming Communities to Take a Stake in International Trading Structures

London, United Kingdom, January 19, 2021 –(PR.com)– Aspuna Group, the world’s first social impact commodities business, has entered a trading partnership with The Aké Collective, a marketing and logistics agency committed to conscious food and farming. The current partnership enables Nigerian small-holder farmers to lock the value of their crops into their communities, crops whose global trading value is rapidly increasing due to their superfood status. Longer term, the aim is to rollout this new full service social impact branded retail products trading approach, which exemplifies stakeholder capitalism, across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Aspuna Group, an alumni of Cambridge Social Ventures, a social enterprise incubation programme run by the University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School, is a social impact commodities business with a proven model for making trading fair. At the heart of its approach is the building of processing capacity to keep value addition within the regions where raw materials originate. With processing plants already operational in Nigeria, the opportunity to support communities further with marketing, sales and distribution services was too good to miss, says Ms Maria-Yassin Jah, CEO of Aspuna Group.

“We’re delighted to announce this partnership with the Aké Collective. Their vision of a world in which small-scale farmers and their communities are compensated equitably for contributing to global food security aligns with our own.

“By enabling small-holder farmers in rural communities to not only process their own harvests, but to package, market and sell them directly, shortening the chain to the consumers, we are really extending the social impact of our work. This strengthens the farmers’ margin and livelihoods are improved, meaning the community takes a real stake in the trading structure,” Ms Jah adds.

“We are confident that our partnership with Aspuna Group in Nigeria is just the start for the Aké Collective. We’re looking forward to scaling our marketing, sales and distribution services across the regions Aspuna works, which currently include Gambia and Tanzania too. And, even though the global pandemic and political instability in Nigeria has slowed down our launch plans, we’re optimistic that the type of stakeholder capitalism our business model exemplifies will be welcomed by consumers, traders, retailers, governments and NGOs alike,” Cobi-Jane Akinrele, founder of The Aké Collective, comments.

Indeed, as pointed out by McKinsey & Co’s Kevin Sneader and Shubham Singhal in their article The Next Normal Arrives: Trends that will define 2021 and Beyond, stakeholder capitalism, will be one of the key trends in the move to the new normal.

“Stakeholder capitalism isn’t about being the most woke or about fending off pesky activists. It’s about building the trust—call it the ‘social capital’ – that businesses need to keep doing business. And it’s about recognising that creating long-term shareholder value requires more than just focusing on shareholders.” -Kevin Sneader and Shubham Singhal, McKinsey & Co

To order samples from The Aké Collective’s first products, including moringa and fonio powder and leaves, all known for their superfood status, download their catalogue here: https://issuu.com/akecollective/docs/ake_collective_product_catalogue_2021.

Photos available upon request.

Media contacts:

· Nicki Hayes (Aspuna Group communications partner)| nicki@nickihayes.com | + 4 (0)7870 1544543
· Maria-Yassin Jah (Aspuna Group CEO) | mariayassin.jah@aspuna.com |+4 (0)7932 603850
· Cobi-Jane Akinrele (The Aké Collective founder) | cobi@ake.com.ng |+4 (0)7944 538559

About Aspuna Group

Aspuna Group is the world’s first social impact commodities business. We make trading fair. Strongly committed to the generation of socioeconomic returns, alongside profit, we build processing capacity within the regions where the products we trade in originate.

By enabling the farming communities we work with to add processing capacity to their local operations, we support them to increase their return on investment. This stabilises the provision of sustainable, ethical supply chains to international commodities buyers.

Initially focusing on Africa and the softs markets, we now offer agro-processing trading and advisory services to public and private organisations wishing to extend African processing capacities too.

About The AKÉ Collective

By ensuring farming communities are paid equitably for their contribution to local and global food security, the Aké Collective aims to improve the lives of small-scale farmers and their immediate communities. Committed to seeing these farmers experience real and tangible change, every day, the Aké Collective strives to support small-scale farmers and manufacturers to curate, develop, and sell high-quality consumer products, ensuring local communities are paid equitably for their contribution to local and global food systems.