Senwes’s official birthday was celebrated on Friday 15 May 2009 with a big birthday party for Senwes staff. This festive event was complete with birthday cake, colourful balloons and streamers to top it all off. Every Senwes employee had the opportunity to share in this occasion as business managers collected party packs for each of them, which they took home after the main event which was held at head office.
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As a commitment of the company to good relationships with people, the logo of the company was used regularly as an emphasis to formulate annual marketing slogans (also called campaign or advertising themes), for example “Senwes says thank you” and “Senwes gives/ploughs back”.
The Senwes Board of Directors has played a prominent role in the forming and expansion of the enterprise since 1909 to date.
South Africa’s vernacular and foreign languages are used as a metaphor to illustrate the initial hardship and cultural difference of our people evolving into “one tongue” where everybody lives and works together as one.
The founding of the National Maize Producers’ Organisation (NAMPO) in 1980 was preceded by an intense maize struggle that started in 1962. The maize board was accused of excessive marketing cost and poor organisation, because there was a maize shortage in the sixties, but the farmers were indeed sitting with great surpluses.
In the early nighties, the South African agricultural sphere, particularly the grain industry, needed a boost after the Anglo-Boer War. The then Transvaal Parliament adopted the first Cooperative Act in 1908 to make provision for the establishment, registration and control of cooperative agricultural organisations with an unlimited accountability. The scarcity of capital in agriculture was the main reason for this approach.
It took Senwes employees almost forty years to take action and established recreational opportunities in which all staff members could be involved. At first the distance between staff at head office and those stationed at the branches and depots posted a challenge to the integration of recreational activities.
The value development strategy, which was actively implemented from 2004, was initially accompanied by uncertainty and instability due to external pressure from investors that prevailed for the sake of optimising the industry, some staff members of the group were laid off, and eventually the staff count was reduced to 1091.
The sixties were a prominent time for technological shifts worldwide. Computer technology introduced humanity to a wealth of information that enabled people to specialise and improve virtually every human process. Prominent amongst other technological advancements at that time, was the Senwes silo-building programme which boasts a long history of development and was an indispensable technology at the time that grew Senwes’ popularity nationwide.
Maize is one of the first grain products to be managed by Senwes after its formation in 1909. Indigenous to the Americas, maize is believed to have been discovered 1500BC in Mexico or Peru.