Settling in essaouira + want establish my rice importing business

Great - it's difficult to find Basmati rice in Morocco. I'm from the UK and am accustomed to eating Basmati. So good luck.

Simmay wrote:

Great - it's difficult to find Basmati rice in Morocco. I'm from the UK and am accustomed to eating Basmati. So good luck.

Actually, that is utter nonsense.

Basmati rice of good quality is sold in all three major supermarket chains, Acima, Carrefour and Marjane. There are at least 5 brands on offer in each outlet. The prices are a bit on the high side, but Carrefour does an ""own label" packet whose price is reasonable. In addition, every so often, there have been special offers, making it worthwhile buying 10 packs at a time, which is what I do.

Hello Nasrullah 

So as to help you get more visibility and response to your post, a new thread was created from the latter on the Essaouira Forum.

Regards
Kenjee

dear
may be you are more close to right,but you don't see the price difference here in super market chains and in Pakistan, we have to cash the part of profit against our efforts,as i heard in one super market one kg super basmati price was 94 darham that was imported from Belgium.Belgium is not grower of rice it only imported from some where and packed it on its brand name (uncle***) and export to Morocco,may be the dealer directly imported it from origin and sent to destination that was purchased and printed on its brand name,possible.when the price of top quality basmati rice ,in Pakistan is about  12 to 18 darham.how much would be on transportation plus import duty and other extra expenses.there is a great capacity in price difference to accommodate to any interested and hard workers as it is a hard job to introduce your self as a reliable importer and marketing agent in new place in new market ,but when you will be done it,only you will not eat from it but your next coming generations will be fruitful from it.good luck to your understanding the theme behind.
thanks
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You are not going to do better than the supermarkets on price, because they can buy in bulk.Indeed, 94 dirhams is a wildly exaggerated price, if someone told you this. 50 dirhams is usual and less for "own label".

2 years back best brand of Basmati was available in Acima at around 50 Dirhams. Importing rice is not as easy as you think, considering the high unemployment rate in morocco, i am sure many local businessmen and new entrepreneurs have already thought of this idea, to get rice from India or other rice rich countries (Like Iran is doing right now). Keep in mind, Moroccans are not used to basmati rice, they already have taste for thick rice which is available starting from 14 dhms per kg. Had there been huge demand, local shops would have started keeping basmati rice. Secondly, you can only dream of supplying to major chains like marjane and Acima which are only located in selected cities and they already have their supply and source of basmati rice, Just be sure of your plan to crack in. Also, morocco has bizarre custom duties on import products which makes them expensive. Just make a solid plan before diving in. Good luck.

shahrukh khan wrote:

2 years back best brand of Basmati was available in Acima at around 50 Dirhams. Importing rice is not as easy as you think, considering the high unemployment rate in morocco, i am sure many local businessmen and new entrepreneurs have already thought of this idea, to get rice from India or other rice rich countries (Like Iran is doing right now). Keep in mind, Moroccans are not used to basmati rice, they already have taste for thick rice which is available starting from 14 dhms per kg. Had there been huge demand, local shops would have started keeping basmati rice. Secondly, you can only dream of supplying to major chains like marjane and Acima which are only located in selected cities and they already have their supply and source of basmati rice, Just be sure of your plan to crack in. Also, morocco has bizarre custom duties on import products which makes them expensive. Just make a solid plan before diving in. Good luck.

I think this is really good advice.

Moroccans like "riz jaune" - yellow grain rice, which is really cheap. However, it is good and I now often use it instead of Basmati. Please consider that if a foreigner like me is prepared to make concessions on price, even though I am used to Basmati rice in the UK, then you will have enormous problems in getting Moroccans to pay 3 or 4 times the price for what they may not feel is a fantastically better product.

In addition, the advice I gave about the supermarkets and the advice in the last post is still germane. You HAVE to sell to the supermarkets as normal market place sellers purveying out of sacks simply would not sell enough premium rice to make it worth their while. While the supermarkets have own label and special offers on top of this, I think your project is doomed.

Please reconsider this.