LIMITLESS AMBITIONS
January, 2024
By AUSTIN UFOMBA
MANAGING DIRECTOR UCB
Union Camerounaise de Brasseries has covered a milestone with its presence in the Cameroonian market and is aspiring for more. In this spirit of seizing new opportunities and development, Austin Ufomba, the Managing Director translates the limitless ambitions that UCB has for this market that it considers dynamic.
As we build into the next fifty years of UCB, one of our key strategic directions is growth. By growth we mean profit, people and community driven growth. In the first fifty years, we literally hadn’t launched an explosion of new brands and SKUs. So, we believe that the next couple of years will take the mandate of standing on the shoulders of what the forefathers have done with the existing brands. There is going to be a lot of innovation across the different beverage sub sectors. We certainly are looking at becoming a total beverage company, meaning that we’ll have different options across the different beverage categories. We are looking at expanding our footprints across the different regions and channels, expanding our manufacturing facilities to be able to capture the opportunity in the marketplace. More importantly as we grow, we want our people to grow. We’re improving on our people orientation because we believe in the human capital as a wealth. The last one on growth is also the communities where we operate. We believe we should be doing a lot on our corporate social responsibility as well because no company will try without supporting the community that gives it enormous support.
For us at UCB, the cameroonian market is a good one and seen with a lot of potential. We see the Cameroon market just where we see Africa, made-up of a large percentage of youth, more than 60% of the population being below the age of 25 from the data we have on the macroeconomics. So that’s a vibrant youth population that will keep consuming our products over a long period of time. Clearly, we see huge potential for our brands across the different beverage sub sectors. We currently are big on beer and we’re expanding our carbonated soft drink market to offer these young consumers a wider range that will meet their taste and sensation needs. We also have other categories within the beverage sector that we are certainly looking at and over time we believe that the cameroonian consumers should be able to enjoy us in more ways than they’ve been doing now. We believe that our basket of products should be able to satisfy the needs of the average Cameroonian whether in a party, in a burial, in a naming ceremony, in an engagement ceremony. We just want to be able to offer a total beverage option to the Cameroonian market.
In terms of regional opportunities, we are stronger in some regions than others. So clearly, we’ll continue to expand and strengthen our hold across different regions in Cameroon, whether it’s the littoral region, Grand West, Central region or even the North. We, want to certainly be able to offer Cameroonians in each of these regions our range of products in the right quality and at the right price.
For us, beyond the fact that we want to grow, our innovation clearly is going to be consumer driven from the perspective that the consumer tastes and preferences continue to change every day, and we have to tap into that trend. So, whether it is flavor change, consumption behavior, consumer’s preference for part time, we just have to consider all this in our innovation and planning to be able to meet the exact needs of what our consumers are looking for. So gone are the days where it is manufacturing driven. Our innovation is not going to be manufacturing driven but consumer driven.
As the biggest indigenous local beverage company, proudly cameroonian that cherishes its heritage, UCB is definitely hungry for growth and determined to serve and deliver high product quality to its consumers. The patriotic fiber of UCB always pushes us to excellence and with this, there is no reason why every Cameroonian should not look up to their own. They should get ready for us and watch the space because more is coming