ECOM Seeds steps forward at the World Sesame & Peanut Conference in Macao

Muhammadu Muzzammil, our Global Head of Seeds, led a team of traders and originators to represent ECOM at the World Sesame and Peanut Conference held last month from the 28th to 30th of August. ECOM’s Global Seeds team has doubled over the last six months and the conference allowed us to increase our visibility in the market, strengthen existing relationships and foster new ones.

ECOM’s Seeds currently trades in organic and conventional sesame and non-GMO soya and soya Meal. In 2023, we grew our volumes by 2.5 times to control 5% of the globally traded sesame market, and grew by 7 times on the globally traded non-GMO soya market. 

In 2025, our aim is to control 7.5% of the sesame market and 1.5% of the non-GMO soya market. Given this ambitious goal of ours, we worked the conference floor at the World Sesame and Peanut Conference! This included strategising with existing clients to better understand their requirements and what we can do to improve their businesses, deciding which new partnerships would be beneficial for the upcoming season, exploring the possibilities of different sales models like supplier-funded, long-term contracts, which destination-based stock and sale which will enable better margins and market visibility, and more.

Fueled by the eagerness to grow, the team actively spent time learning about new origins such as Pakistan, India, Myanmar and Brazil to understand the various sourcing models, product specifications and peculiarities, and operational processes involved in the respective countries to commence trade. The team also explored challenges from the customer point of view, aiming to understand the challenges consumers face in buying products from these new origin countries, to identify a clear value proposition that ECOM can offer the buyers.

The conference also had a high-level trade delegation from the Government of Tanzania present, who demonstrated Tanzania's success in converting their produce trade into online auctions. Our delegates from ECOM spoke with them, sharing ideas to improve the platform and giving them some incidents of challenges that were experienced by the users.

We tried to emphasize our company's values of sustainability and traceability by engaging in conversations revolving around certified and organic sesame. We spent time with the machinery manufacturers to understand the latest developments in technology that enable the cleaning, sorting and sterilization requirements that meet food quality specification of the European markets.

The platform also provided insights into value-added sesame products- such as hulled sesame seeds, their value chain and consumption patterns- derived products- such as sesame oil and its consumption patterns- and value-added products- such as tahini and halwa. There was also an opportunity for us to study the peanuts value chain and the various opportunities and challenges in the sector.