We are a UK based commodity trading house headquartered in London. In addition, we have offices in Bulgaria, Mauritius and Indonesia.
The Helm group of companies is active in two spheres; oil and gas in and around Europe and soft commodities in Madagascar. All financing and international marketing activities are handled out of London. Sales and client liasioning are devolved to our regional offices while our core supply operations are in Madagascar.
Specifically in relation to Madagascar, we established our fully owned subsidiary, Helm Natural Resources Madagascar SARL, last year with the intent to export locally produced commodities to our clients around the world. Our portfolio of products include:
1. Spices; cloves, black pepper and cinnamon
2. Beans; Alubia beans, green moung beans, black eye beans and kidney beans
3. Robusta coffee beans
4. Fermented cocoa beans
5. Vanilla; from bourbon black premium to extracts and cuts
Our team in Madagascar consists of circa 40 personnel headed by our Country Director who has been sourcing and trading these commodities over the past two decades. We have three warehouses around the country in Tamatave, Manakara and Majunga respectively as well as smaller satellite warehouses dotted around the country.
We are not growers of products at present although that is the natural next step for us in the months to come. Our local team is embedded into the supply chain to the extent that we have the capability of sourcing from the smallest farmlands, bring it to our warehouses, process it to the point where it is ready for export and then ship the product(s) out to our clients. Although are main export warehouse is in the port city of Tamatave, we also ship from Diego Suarez and Vohemar based on the location of the product(s).
We have all our shipments quality controlled internally as well as independently inspected by SGS to ensure conformity to our sales and purchase contracts. We also tend to be different from other suppliers in Madagascar in the way we stow products in containers as well as the in the way we pack our products. For spices, cocoa beans and coffee beans, we normally use ultra-hermetic Supergrain bags as the internal lining under jute bags. We can also palletise the cargo if the client so desires. For beans, we normally use ultra-hermetic Transafeliners to protect the cargo from insect and mould infestation as well as from any moisture ingression. For vanilla, we have specialised vacuum packing and heat welding equipment and we normally ship it in palletised carton boxes
Our clients are spread across the world and we pride ourselves in delivering products exactly as per specification and on time. We understand the trading business with over 2 decades of experience and are skilful in navigating our way through complex export procedures and documentation.
