Blog #4- Small Factories take Root in Africa

Tim McCollum, an aspiring entrepreneur from Brooklyn, New York has embarked upon a challenge to to take the supply chain of his coffee company back to its very root, deep in the wilderness of Africa. The good news was that he reached a rare source of premium cocoa before his competetion, but this may also be his downfall. Mr. McCollum wants to grow his company and have them expand into Africa, but he is realizing that the locals have absolutely no experience with the global consumers or markets, and many have not even seen white people before. He is convinced cocoa grown here could be taken the 600 miles to his factory and exported to the United States and across the world. Across Africa, hundreds of tiny manufacturers have been going where MNC's have dared to previously go. They are making coffee, shoes, and even hot sauce all across the continent. They are trying to figure out why a country with the largest unexploited resources in the world, and the lowest per capita income can sustain big business. Experts are trying to begin the process of exporting jobs and resources from places like Asia and China into Africa for the first time ever.

This relates to our class because it relates how bigger, richer countries are interacting with lower, poorer countries in today's marketplace. How big businesses are trying to export to places where they can use the cheapest resources and cheapest labor possible in order to maximize profits for themselves. It digs into the treatment and use of less fortunate people in unsafe and often unsupervised conditions. Africa has long been considered more of a risk to invest in, because almost every country in the continent has recently gone through some sort of corruption, political uprising, or civil wars. If these jobs are taken to Africa, it would impact the global market by expanding the resources and lowering the costs of certain items. It would benefit the economy and earnings of the people in Africa, while at the same time giving Americans the lowest price on goods.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SBWSJ_World_LeftCarousel_1 (Wall Street Journal)