Expanding the Sale of Farmer Products through Strategic Branding & E-Commerce

By Andrés Varona, Agriculture & Food Security Program Officer at Partners of the Americas 

For two weeks in September 2017, Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) volunteer Bettina Barrillas traveled to Managua to assist our host, Fabretto Foundation. During her assignment, Ms. Barrillas worked alongside Fabretto’s e-commerce team in order to develop a creative, strategic and innovative branding plan for its agricultural value added products (e.g. Honey, Chia, Coffee, Fruits). As part of these efforts, she provided hands-on knowledge transfers about design strategies and accessible software that can be used to develop and improve packaging/labeling for existing products. The volunteer also supported the host in generating marketing campaigns tailored to the local and domestic market for natural food products.

This F2F assistance came at a strategic time for Fabretto, especially since they are currently seeking to leverage their connections in the United States to sell their farmers’ agricultural products which include coffee, beans, cacao, honey, artisanal baskets, and recycled jewelry. Informally, Fabretto’s guests and have purchased the farmers’ products during site visits and fundraising events. Fabretto Farms, the name of this new business project, seeks to formalize this process to provide its farmers with a more stable income source. Currently, Fabretto Farms is a social enterprise with Fabretto Foundation staff providing the bulk of logistics and operations for the sale and marketing of the products with farmers responsible for the cultivating and packaging of the products. The Foundation staff has regular customers (e.g. NGO’s, faith-based organizations) in the United States but is also working to secure other contracts.

As part of this Farmer-to-Farmer assistance, Ms. Barrillas 1) reviewed existing strategic plans and provided suggestions for improvement, 2) revised and selected website format best suited for e-commerce with IT officer, as well as 2) assess, sorted, and ranked for quality over 15,000 photos. She also wrote nine templates of product listing descriptions and developed a basic graphic design training that all Fabretto staff could use and put into practice. At the end of her assignment, Ms. Barillas provided a series of practical recommendations that Fabretto can use to improve branding and communication efforts.

These include:
- Strategies for enhancing the e-commerce website (e.g. guidelines for using photos, broken links, keywords, benchmarking websites).
- Way to define product listings by focusing on only a handful of value chains such as coffee and honey production as well as the making of baskets and jewelry.

“The team at my host organization not only briefed me on their project, but they shared their own personal stories and motivations that drove them to work towards a better Nicaragua. They shared their traditions. They shared their food. They shared their hearts. And, I shared mine in a meager exchange of our worlds and life experiences. Because of their open hearts, I was able to better help them set a foundation to accomplish their project goals. Together, we worked towards our shared aim of strengthening their intervention to better serve their beneficiaries.”

- Bettina Barillas, F2F Volunteer in Nicaragua