by George Grady Grossman
Takeo Province, Cambodia. On May 5th we awoke early with 44 bags of “Smart Choice Fuel” briquettes
weighing 50 kilograms each - that’s 2200kg or 4850lbs. We hired Odom and his 2-ton “super truck” to transport us and the briquettes to Takeo Province.
It would be so much easier and profitable to sell our briquettes locally but when the forest is close and free it’s hard to convince someone to try cooking with a bagel shaped briquette at 500 Riel (13 cents) per kilo. The extremely poor always have more time then money. Every day I see people doing the darnedest things that take an incredible amount time so as not to spend a precious Riel.
We drive to Takeo province because that is where the trees are already gone. Here the rural poor often cook with cow dung or rice straw or woodsticks that arrive in vans from the mountains. Our briquettes are welcomed by our core customers. We arrive at our first village about 3:00pm, hop out, set up a stove and build a cooking fire. I watch. Curiosity brings people over; Yoen and Savin start telling the “Smart Choice Fuel” story: where they come from, how to light them, why to use them. We get questions, we get skeptics and we pass out brochures. Then we get sales.
First someone wants one bag. Then another. Yoen runs across the street to a client who bought a bag last trip. She would like one more as well. However, we have some customer service issues. One woman complains that the briquettes crumbled. We knew an early batch didn’t have enough binder (scrap paper) to hold the briquettes together. We offer her a credit and she buys another bag. I work at teaching Yoen and Savin the importance of customer service. Everyone must be happy. The customer is always right. Villages are small, people talk , our briquettes can’t afford a bad reputation.
Our next stop on Highway #3 is a large market area. The results are different. People are indifferent; more cook with gas. We only sell 2 bags.
We visit existing customers in the next village. One very poor family only uses them for special occasions, using cow dung for everyday needs. Some customers have only used a few briquettes. We review the lighting procedures. Some people bought a bag but missed the part on how to light them. Many complain about the smoke. I remind our crew to explain that lighting a briquette is like lighting wood sticks and charcoal or any other fire. It smokes before the flames kick in.
Just before dark we demonstrate to a man who has a lumber mill and sells charcoal. I figure this will be a tough sell. Most of our customers are women. Women do all the cooking and typically control the family money. Usually men just ask questions and then leave. Some bring back a wife who makes the decision. Part of our manager’s plan is for women from the production facility to travel and sell the briquettes. To my surprise, the man is impressed and buys a bag. I ask Yoen to make sure he follow up with him for feedback on the next trip.
The next morning we arise early again, going from village to village and stopping at the markets. I hear similar stories to the day before. I juggle briquettes to entertain the kids, silently thanking my Dad for this great skill. Often customers want me to deliver a bag to their house, others want a picture. It’s fun but hard work. A man who bought 7 bags on a previous trip now wants a refund. Yoen is perplexed. The man also sells charcoal. I start asking questions: Do you use the briquettes yourself? How to you demonstrate? Where are the briquettes now?
He complains the profit margin is not good. He makes 100Riel profit on charcoal. I ask how much charcoal costs? 700Riel. If we wholesale briquettes to him from 500 and he retails them for 600, the profit is the same. The problem is that the price is not much better than charcoal; people know how to use charcoal.
This is what I came to analyze, briquette sales points on both price a margin. How do we give this man incentive to sell our briquettes? Leaving out the environmental factors, the incentive must be financial. We spend a lot of time with this man and in the end he agrees to try harder. We agree to wholesale only to him as our exclusive vendor, and to make demonstrations to support his retail outlet. Learning the difference between training a vendor and selling to a customer is valuable experience for Yoen and Savin.
As the sun begins to set, we roll into a village where we have never sold before. We have 17 bags left and begin the demonstration. We sell one bag, then another, one women takes two. I count the bags, 12 left, 8 left. Then the yelling starts. A women claims she paid but Yoen doesn’t have her written into the sales log. I sense this could ruin everything. She yells more. Yoen talks faster. She claims she paid. I know enough about Cambodians to understand that this is a no win situation. Realizing Yoen may not be able to solve this, I finally step into the ruckus. He will need to save face and so will she. The selling has stopped.
Interestingly, at first this woman had been interested in becoming a vendor and had exchanged contact information. I told her we can only do business with people we trust, if you cheat us you will not be a vendor. Yoen translates and she begins yelling again. I interrupt and tell her I will give her a bag. This calms her down a little. I repeat my offer again. Finally she is silent. I tell her when we return to the office, we will compare our sales report with our inventory and our money and we will know if she is telling the truth or not. If she is right we will call her to apolgize. If we have proof she cheated us, she will not be a vendor. She stomps off and her bag sits on the ground. We sell another bag and finally we are sold out except for her bag sitting on the ground. It had been a selling frenzy. We are ecstatic and exhausted.
Savin introduces me to a man he says is in the military; the man understands why we are doing this and wants to know more. I tie the school, rural sustainable development and the environment together as best I can. He thanks me and hopes I will continue to help the people of Cambodia and the environment. He explains that in Takeo all the trees are gone….it used to be covered in forest.
Our conversation is interrupted by the horn from our driver, time to go.
The women who claims she paid arrives. Without a word she motions for the bag. Silently we hoist it onto her moto and she races off. I wish she had heard the conversation with the military man. Timing is everything.
George, an American couple who, frustrated by their own reproductive limits, begin a journey into the wide and seemingly pointed universe to adopt a needy Cambodian boy living in a Phnom Penh orphanage. It is a powerful tale (as you can guess from simply reading the PR blurbs); An international adoptive mother gains more than the child she prays for, but an entire country, its history, its culture, its utter poverty and its deep-seeded social problems. But this book accomplishes much more than that.
