The challenge
A Rotterdam-based tahini and halva producer had bought Somali sesame seed exactly once. The lot arrived with an aflatoxin reading over the EU limit after sitting on the Berbera dockside for three weeks waiting on a delayed letter of credit — and the buyer had to divert it to animal feed at a loss. From that point on, Somalia was off the approved-origin list, even though the buyer's technical team rated the variety and oil content higher than their regular Sudanese and Ethiopian suppliers.
In Berbera, an exporter aggregating seed from smallholders across the region had real volume and a price advantage, but no pre-shipment testing routine — every lot went out on whatever documentation the forwarder could arrange in time, and nobody had registered the company for the EU's duty-free access that Somalia, as a least-developed country, already qualified for. Every shipment that did move paid full duty and carried the same quality risk as the one that had been rejected two years before.
What we did
- 01
Found out the rejected lot wasn't a sourcing problem
We traced the failed shipment back to its paperwork. The aflatoxin spike wasn't in the seed at harvest — it developed during the three weeks it sat bagged on an open dock in Berbera's heat waiting on financing. The seed itself tested clean before storage. That changed what we were actually fixing.
- 02
Put a lab result in front of every shipment before it sailed
We set up pre-shipment sampling through an accredited lab in Nairobi, with results sent to Rotterdam before the vessel left port. The buyer could reject or adjust the order before paying for anything, not after a container sat in customs.
- 03
Registered the exporter for the EU's duty-free access
Somalia already qualified for zero-duty, zero-quota access under the EU's scheme for least-developed countries, but the exporter had never registered to claim it. We handled the registration, which also freed up margin for the testing regime instead of shipments quietly absorbing the standard duty rate.
- 04
Built payment terms that didn't make either side carry the storage risk
Deposit on order, balance against shipping documents and a clean lab certificate, and a hard rule that no lot sits on the Berbera dock for more than five days once it's paid for. The financing delay that caused the original failure can't repeat itself under this structure.
- 05
Turned single orders into a standing annual contract
Once four consecutive lots cleared on the first test, we moved the relationship from opportunistic buying to a 200-tonne annual offtake, delivered in regular lots with a price mechanism tied to the Somali harvest rather than fixed for the year.
The outcome
The producer signed its first 200-tonne annual contract seven months after we were introduced. Every lot since has cleared on the first lab test. The exporter now plans harvest-season financing around a confirmed buyer instead of hoping one turns up.
- 200
- Tonnes under annual contract
- 0
- Failed lab tests since the new protocol
- 3
- Languages in every conversation
“We'd written Somalia off after the first container. Mohammed didn't ask us to trust the seed again — he showed us the lab result before we'd paid for anything. That's a different conversation.”
What we'd do differently
We fixed the first annual contract at a flat price for all twelve months. Somali sesame prices move with the harvest more than we'd planned for, and by month eight the exporter was shipping at a loss to hold the price. We renegotiated mid-year rather than let the relationship absorb it quietly. On the next annual contract we're indexing the price to the harvest from day one, not waiting for it to become a problem.