Export – A savoir Faire For

AGK Export

COMOROS

Our export department is dealing with:

Vanilla Beans, Cloves & Ylang Ylang Essential Oil. Our headquarter is in Moroni and we have offices with processing facilities in Anjouan and Mohéli too.

Due to the quality of the soils and the climate, Comorian products are known to be qualitative.

VANILLA IN COMOROS

Our family has been collecting and curing vanilla beans for four generations.
Our traditional and in-house know-how has been passed on from generation to generation since 1943.

We believe that Comoros has one of the best vanilla qualities in the world. It’s a BOURBON vanilla type, like Madagascar.

Before the vanilla crisis of 2003, Comoros vanilla was very famous and its production was the second largest after Madagascar, with 200 tons per year.

Due to the dry and volcanic soils, the beans contain less water, therefore the vanillin content is higher. The islands of Comoros have loads of sun and it is huge asset both for the vanilla cultivation and curing process.

Vanillin content: between 1.6 to 2.5%

A UNIQUE VANILLA GRADE

“Vanille Mauvais” is the local and unique Grand Cru grade…which surprisingly means “bad vanilla”

During the French colonial era, the colons were exporting vanilla.

Farmers were selling to the colons their vanilla and use to leave on the trees some beans.
In September, their children were harvesting the beans and were going to sell it to the colons
for a small amount of money to buy candies at school. They were saying: “it’s a bad vanilla but
here is some coins, I will take it to help you.

This vanilla is the best vanilla: beans are looking bad/imperfect but the smell is
outstanding and the vanillin content is very high. It is the favorite vanilla of
“connoisseurs” that know vanilla: a genuine Grand Cru grade!

The reason is that the beans didn’t go through any curing process, they have been maturing
naturally on the vines (no boiling process) so they kept a high
concentration in vanillin (around 2% of vanillin content).

VANILLA SUPPLY CHAIN

CLOVES IN COMOROS

For Comoros we are mainly exporting from Mutsamudu (Anjouan) where we have 3 warehouses.

80% of our exportations are made from Mutsamudu port, 20% from Moroni port.

We collect cloves in Moheli as well, but the stock will be to one of the main warehouses in Anjouan or Moroni.

Here are how we operate:

YLANG-YLANG IN COMOROS

We distillate the Ylang Ylang flowers in our 3 premises (on the 3 islands of Comoros) and we also collect the essential oils from the village collectives with who we work.

Our oils are mainly exported to Europe and USA to fragrance houses. In Moheli, we have sustainability programs with the farmers. We do reforestation and work on composts.

MADAGASCAR

In 2010, AGK expanded the business in Madagascar regarding exportation activities with two companies:

SPICES & OIL (for cloves leaves essential oil)
MALAGASY SPICES (for vanilla and cloves).

The headquarters for those two companies are in Mananara Nord, Analanjirofo.

SPICES & OIL

Spices & Oil is the first company that we opened in Madagascar for the collection and exportation of cloves leaf essential oils.

We built this company with a strong partnership made with GIVAUDAN (the world leader in the fragrances and aromas business).

Spices & Oil has 4 premises in Madagascar:

MALAGASY SPICES

in 2010, we opened Malagasy Spices, with its headquarters in MANANARA.

Our four premises are in ANALANJIROFO region: MANANARA, MAROANTSETRA, SONIERANIVONGO, VAVATENINA.

ANALANJIROFO means ”The Forest of Cloves”.

Thanks to our historical collection/sourcing network in cloves leaf oil, we have an easier access to vanilla and cloves as we know well the farmers and cooperatives of the region.

We have fully integrated laboratories in our facilities, both in Madagascar and in Comoros, which allows us to have better control over the quality of our vanilla beans.

CERTIFICATIONS

We have partnerships with world leaders in the Food, Flavor and Fragrance industries. We do Vanilla but not only. We also collect, process and export Cloves, Ylang Ylang Essential Oil, Cloves Leaf Essential Oil.

We export our beans to USA, Europe, Asia and Middle East.