As Ramadan approaches and the Christian lent period advances, Yonna Enterprise yesterday announced it has a massive stock of food on sale to ease availability and affordability of basic foods stuff to Gambians in these holy periods and beyond.
Addressing a media conference at its warehouse in Kanifing, (opposite Sankung Sillah Soap Factory) Kejaw Bayo, Manager Enterprise, said in consistency with its desire to make life easy for Gambians, Yonna has imported massive stock of quality rice, oil, sugar, sun flower, findi, corn flower, drinks and other basic food commodities that are currently on sale at unbeatable prices at all its outlets across the country.
“Yonna is completely Gambian owned and it is all about Gambians’ interest and desire. We called this media briefing to try to reach out to the Gambian people through you about this new initiative we took to ease the burden on the people when it comes to the provision of basic food commodities,” he told the assembled press.
Momodou Barrow, General Manager of Yonna, explained that Yonna is a business group with multiple facets.; this include Yonna Forex, Yonna Enterprise, and Yonna Islamic microfinance. He said and all these units are working to make life easy for Gambians.
“When it comes to financial needs, the micro finance is taken care of that, while the Forex bureau is taking care of the remittances platform.
“But today we are here to showcase the Yonna Enterprise which, though has been here since 2007, was until now, a corner shop. So, this corner shop has now grown to become one of the local biggest importers in the country, trying to satisfy the needs of the Gambian people,” he said.
Barrow said it has now dawn on them that there is a need to introduce their own brand, The Yonna. ”in this way people can communicate with us and can find us anytime. They can try us and when they like our products, they can talk to us. We are trying to be visible in the food market because though there are big players in this sector doing their part, sometimes what you locally do also is important so that we support especially those areas where the big players failed to capture. That’s the real market we are trying to focus on. We are ready to take up the challenge with the realisation that Gambians have to take the front seat in terms of bringing in the food items,” he said.
Mr Barrow said despite the dominance of players in the food import sector there are people back home there who are really in need of these things. “But how do they get them in the cheapest possible way?”. ”This is where Yonna comes in.
We created our own supply chain whereby when goods are ordered in these warehouse here, they are transported to the provinces to our outlets and sold cheaply to the communities. So, if you come to the Yonna forex bureau, example to collect money and you need rice, you don’t need to go any corner shop as you can get rice right there. And what is more? You will be saving D50 whenever you buy the Yonna rice from anywhere,” Mr Barrow said.
He further revealed that the Yonna rice is of top quality having been washed twice and packaged in the best possible way. ” To ensure and guarantee quality we had to visit the factories producing our rice, canned drinks, corn flower and oil. All these is to ensure that that we get only the best product out there for our people”, Barrow said.
Fatou Cham head of Marketing and Isatou Barry Business Development Officer took turns to explain Yonna Enterprise’s concept, food supply chain, marketing outlets and quality of the products in local languages. Madame Cham said all Yonna outlets either has the food store or has information about the nearest Yonna food deport.
