South Africa went into lockdown in March 2020 and the entire economy, including the probiotics sector, was hard hit. As a result, sales by BioGaia’s partner Ascendis fell sharply during the second quarter.

Since then they have been working actively to get sales going again, among other things through new marketing strategies in combination with online training and webinars.

“South Africa is BioGaia’s most important market in Africa – and one of our ten top markets globally – and the loss of sales therefore had a significant impact on us. Despite the country being back on partial lockdown, Ascendis’s sales are now on the right track,” says Kim Prinsloo, Key Account Manager Africa.

“Kenya and Ghana, two of BioGaia’s newer markets, were also hit hard by lockdown. Nevertheless during the year we succeeded in launching both Protectis drops with vitamin D and Gastrus in Kenya. The team at Phillips Pharma worked hard to keep sales going and in September sales to consumers rose again,” concludes Kim.