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REAL-WORLD StratigoNow IMPACT STORY

Turnaround & Business Restructuring

Company / Organization

A mid-sized packaged meat producer

Location

Accra, Ghana

Industry / Sector

Packaged Meats & Ready-to-Cook Foods - including sausages, cold cuts, marinated meats, and frozen portions sold through retail outlets.

The company was quietly slipping into decline. Sales were stagnant, freezers in retail stores were filled with slow-moving inventory, and more than half the product range had effectively stopped performing. Distributors preferred pushing competitor brands with quicker rotations and more predictable margins. Packaging looked dated, the brand felt invisible, and marketing consisted of occasional offers with no strategy behind them.

Despite the clear signs of fatigue, the promoter believed the problem could be solved by adding more distributors and introducing new product flavors. He blamed market conditions, inflation, and customer price sensitivity - unaware that the true issues were structural: an unfocused product line, weak distribution discipline, ineffective supply chain rhythms, and a brand identity that no longer inspired trust.

The promoter was confident the business simply “needed a push.” In his mind, growth was a function of adding more variants, widening distribution, and doing louder promotions. He drastically underestimated how deeply the product mix had decayed, how poorly aligned the distributor network was, and how confusing the brand had become for modern urban consumers.

180 days

StratigoNow

approached the assignment like a clinical turnaround - stabilize first, diagnose honestly, then rebuild. We began with a comprehensive audit across retail stores, distributors, and SKU economics. The truth was stark: nearly 40% of SKUs were draining profitability, the so-called “hero products” were surviving only through trade pressure, and the distributor network had become large but dysfunctional.

We undertook a decisive product-line restructuring: eliminating dead-weight SKUs, strengthening high-performing variants, refining recipes where necessary, and creating two new anchor offerings aligned to real consumer taste behavior in Accra.

Instead of expanding distribution, we redesigned it - margins, stocking norms, route discipline, retailer incentives, and city zoning. A leaner, more committed partner ecosystem replaced the earlier scattered one. The brand identity was completely rebuilt. The previous packaging lacked trust cues and made the product look cheaper than its quality. The new identity was clean, modern, and clearly communicated food safety and reliability - the two levers that drive purchasing in packaged meats. Marketing shifted from random, discount-led bursts to a predictable rhythm of sampling, chef collaborations, freezer-signage education, and neighborhood-level targeting. Internally, order-taking, production scheduling, and dispatch were streamlined into a weekly operational rhythm that drastically reduced chaos and wastage.

The brand regained momentum within weeks. Retailers began prioritizing the products again, distributors saw faster rotations and higher reliability, and overall wastage reduced significantly. Margins improved as the product mix was cleaned up. The new branding created immediate visibility and trust inside stores, and consumers responded with repeat purchases. Most importantly, the promoter underwent the necessary mindset shift - realizing that sustainable growth comes from focus, discipline, and a clear business engine, not from expansion by impulse. The company emerged with a stronger brand, a sharper model, and a far more predictable path to growth in Accra’s competitive packaged-meats market.