Societe de conserves alimentaires au Senegal (SOCAS)
All data are collected in the Fiscal Year of 2008-2009.
Company Profile and History
The “Société de conserves alimentaires au Sénégal” (SOCAS) started operating in 1965 in the River Delta, testing tomatoes for processing into concentrate for sale on the Senegalese market. In 1969 a small pilot plant was installed at Ross-Béthio and operated until 1971. In 1972 SOCAS installed a 200 tons/day mill in Savoigne and started a farm capable of producing 3 to 4000 tonnes of tomatoes per year. However it buys most of its tomatoes from independent farmers-12 000 farmers grow tomatoes in under contract with technical support from SOCAS.
In Country Location
50, avenue du Président Lamine GUEYE, BP 451, Dakar, Senegal;
Telephone: +(221) 33 839 90 00
Telefax: +(221) 33 823 80 69
Services and Products
The company manufactures tomato paste. The company also exports fresh green beans, dried tomatoes and basil paste.
Number of Employees
300 permanent employees and 1000 temporary employees during harvesting
Financial Information
The company has an annual turnover of approximately 15 billion CFA. Concentrate production was 10 000 tons in 2007.
Market Share
Socas has a monopoly on the production of tomato concentrate after buying its competitor, “Société nationale de tomates industrielles” (SNTI).
Business Objective
To increase production and international sales
Business Model
The company focuses on: improving quality of fresh and concentrate tomatoes; modernize equipment; aggressive marketing campaign especially in Europe; developing new products to grow sales and revenue
Ownership of Business
SOCAS is a subsidiary of the Sentenac Group, a leading agro-business in Senegal.
Benefits Offered and Relations with Government
Following its independence in 1960 until the devaluation of the CFA franc in 1994, the Government of Senegal had followed a policy of supporting the major export sub sectors, especially groundnuts, cotton, horticulture, cereals, sugar and tomato concentrate. The agricultural component of the Government’s post-devaluation programme committed the Government to abolishing price intervention for final products and inputs, liberalizing trade-related aspects of agricultural policy, and withdrawing from production, processing and marketing of agricultural products and inputs in favour of the private sector.
However the tomato concentrate sub-sector has not yet been liberalised. SOCAS is protected against competition from imports by the fact that its output is the only sold on the domestic market under a mandatory Senegalese standard.
Product Development
SOCAS has recently started using cheaper imported tomatoes from China and Iran in order to cut down production costs. This has dealt a blow against domestic tomato producers in the Senegal River Valley.