The organisation

As the first company to make dairy products from milk produced locally in Northern Senegal, La Laiterie du Berger (LDB) is both improving the livelihoods of livestock herders and offering nutritional food products to the population at large. Despite the fact that 30% of the Senegalese population are livestock herders 90% of dairy products in Senegal are made from imported powdered milk, which has low nutritional value.

The investor

The company is part of the portfolio of Investisseurs et Partenaires (I&P), a Paris based impact fund which makes investments in SMEs in Africa. I&P invested in LDB as a start-up and now has a 25% share in the company. The Impact Measurement WG highlighted the fund as a best practice example of impact measurement. It works closely with its investees to design specific metrics and systems of reporting on impact recognising the challenges for impact measurement in Africa – notably around data collection (where electronic data management and collection is not an option) and a lack of publicly available data for comparison.

The metrics

For LDB the key metrics are the number of herders, volume of milk collected and the annual income of the herder. If a farmer wants to supply LDB with milk then they are given a churn, each churn being uniquely identified. This enables monitoring of total numbers and volumes as well as enabling calculations to be made about the level of pay at the end of the month. LDB products are now sold in over 6,000 shops. The business is expected to involve over 1,400 herders in 2014 (up from just 200 in 2006), collecting nearly 2,000 tons of milk and increasing the annual income per herder to €408 (up from €314 just three years before). By using these metrics LBD has managed to clearly demonstrate its impact over the past eight years and secured further investment from the likes of impact investors PhiTrust Partenaires and the Grameen Crédit Agricole Microfinance Foundation.