A Million Dollar Opportunity for Seafood in the African Savannah

There are moments when fate, circumstance and bullheaded determination create the right mix for a successful business venture. When Aimee Sanga, a Congolese national, met and married Henk Thyssen, a Dutchman who has spent more than two decades running a trucking business in Ndola, he couldn’t have known that soon, trucking would take a backseat to a business initiated by his wife.

Aimee realized that high quality seafood was difficult to come by in landlocked Zambia, so she had Henk bring in truckloads of deep fresh frozen seafood from Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania and Mozambique.

From direct deliveries to various destinations, Seafood Basket has grown, in five years, to a thriving business supplying major institutional and retail customers throughout the Copperbelt and other provinces.

With a diverse and continually increasing clientele, the couple sees unlimited potential for growth on both sides of the border, but recognize that investment partnerships are the key to realizing the business’s full potential. “We’re trying to keep up with demand, but the problem we have is storage,” Aimee explains.

Securing funding for a 2500 square meter cold storage facility would allow them to continue on the sharp growth trajectory of the last few years. “It’s food – it’s something that people need on a daily business. People in Zambia don’t know about seafood; there’s a niche to be filled.”