African Sunshine Soda New Brand In Town, by Junious Ricardo Stanton

Rafiq Diya Al-Fareed has worked in community economic development for years. He worked with Kenny Gamble as Vice President for Economic Development at Gamble’s Universal Homes Community Development Corporation, specifically with their Universal business Support Center and Universal Retail Companies economic development initiatives. He has a background in foods and beverages, so in July of 2005 he launched his own company, Unique Food Group’s first product line called African Sunshine soda. While he plans to offer a full line of food products Al-Fareed decided to build the foundation of the business with soft drinks because of the amount of beverages African-Americans consume on an annual basis.

“The soda industry has increased every year since World War II. In 2004 the beverage industry for sodas, just for sodas not bottled water or juices’ gross sales were sixty-four billion dollars. So looking at that number and also finding out the African-American community consumes approximately twenty per cent of all soft drinks I though it was a good area to focus on. Our population is about twelve point seven per cent of the US population, so looking at twenty per cent of the gross sales you are around thirteen billion dollars. The African-American community is primarily located between New York to Virginia, we are twenty per cent of that whole population so if you do the numbers and say a fourth of the soda industry equals about three billion and if you an capture something like ten per cent of that on the East Coast that’s about a three hundred million dollar business. I think with a strong marketing strategy and a good product you can acquire that percentage in about three to five years.” Shared Al-Fareed.

So in addition to the requisite market research Al-Fareed also did his homework on flavoring, bottling, labeling, packaging, marketing and distribution. Once he did all that he sold his first cases of sodas in July 2005. “I was able to latch onto a very good supporter in the Brown Shop Rite family that took on our product in July in the very beginning. That gave us a very good launch and that was great exposure for the product. From that we were able to leverage that relationship with other supermarkets in the Shop Rite family as well as in Cousins and Fresh Grocers that gave me the exposures. From there I was able to deal with the Mom and Pop Stores. When the Mom and Pop stores came on board then we had more exposure to the neighborhoods. Lately I’ve been meeting with distributors that distribute to the Philadelphia and surrounding counties as well as Norther Delaware and Southern New Jersey. So I’ve been trying to show them that my organization has been ale to build a presence in this market just by myself and to say to them that with their power to distribute if they came on board and distributed it would have greater power and potential and it could be a win-win for everybody.”  Al-Fareed realized he could not compete with the big boys’ massive advertising budget so he developed a grass roots campaign using: E-mail broadcasts, flyers and is working on a budget to foray into cable, radio and newspaper advertising.

To be successful in the soft drink business you have to have a good tasting product. Al-Fareed launched his product line with six flavors. “The flavors are: Moroccan Grape, Egyptian Orange, Nigerian Fruit Punch, Liberian Cola, Sudanese Pineapple Orange and Ivorian Pineapple. The fruit punch, grape and orange are some of the top flavors consumed by the African-American communities. So those are the top three and close behind are the Ivorian Pineapple that has a great appeal to the Latino and Hispanic community as well. You should have a cola somewhere in your flavor house that you can present even though you understand the giants you are going up against. If someone is going to buy into your brand they ought to have a selection of all the flavors that are out there that possibly may appeal to them.  I decided to spare no expense in the flavoring that way no one can say the product doesn’t taste good.” Using focus groups and taste testing sampling, Al-Fareed and his flavor house developed flavors he is confident his customers will like.  “The flavoring house I’m using has been in business since 1892, they serve as my consultants to determine what’s going on the market, what are the trends. Our six flavors will be the introduction and we will probably expand into other areas like diet flavoring.”  He went to great lengths to create an appealing six color label using top quality material on a unique sixteen-point nine once bottle. Al-Fareed says the new trend is for the larger companies to package their sodas in smaller bottles and he wanted to be in the vanguard of this new trend rather than having to retool and change following the lead of the big boys.

Long term, Al-Fareed wants to expand into other food lines, but right now his primary focus is getting the sodas into more stores and retail chains. He has been in continuing discussions with people in the Chicago area who have expressed interest to distribute African Sunshine out there.  He is trying to cultivate venture capitalists and angel investors to help him further capitalize his business and he is aggressively attempting to get into the larger retail chains like Wal-Mart and Pathmark.  Right now he is doing everything himself, making calls, working with the flavoring house, raising money and delivering the sodas in his own truck or rental vans. African Sunshine is expanding into the Philadelphia suburbs , Northern Delaware and South Jersey. “We’ve had discussions with Wal-Mart and Pathmark and they have made promises to take our product. We’ve been promised to go into two Sam’s Clubs in Philadelphia and New Jersey but that probably won’t take place until the Spring. We’re negotiating with Pathmark and we expect to be in five of their Philadelphia stores by February.” Al-Fareed has aspirations of becoming a national brand and a major niche player in the food industry. “My goal is to grow Unique Food Group into a national company that does other products targeted to the African-American community that has the same quality and appeal to the general community. African Sunshine is the initial product and seed for the company to grow financially. From there we should be able to grow into other areas and have other items.”

The company has a Website www.AFRICANSUNSHINE.BIZ  For more information about African Sunshine call (267) 847-2227.