WATCH: Can 'Made in Africa' cigars compete with Cuba?

While drinking in a nightclub in Mozambique in 2015, Kamal Moukheiber had an idea: a luxury cigar made not in Cuba, but in southern Africa. Image: Bongani Cigars Facebook.

While drinking in a nightclub in Mozambique in 2015, Kamal Moukheiber had an idea: a luxury cigar made not in Cuba, but in southern Africa. Image: Bongani Cigars Facebook.

Published Jan 18, 2020

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JOHANNESBURG  - While drinking in a

nightclub in Mozambique in 2015, Kamal Moukheiber had an idea: a

luxury cigar made not in Cuba, but in southern Africa.

The Lebanese former banker glanced at a customer puffing at

what looked like an imported cigar and thought: "What's wrong

with Africa producing cigars?"

"Africa has been growing tobacco for 100 years," Moukheiber,

50, told Reuters. We have the land, we have the water, we have

the skill set. So what's missing?"

His business, Bongani Cigars - it means "be grateful" in

Zulu - was conceived as a small, fun project. Now it produces

nearly 10,000 cigars a month, small numbers compared to the big

producers. It sells in South Africa, Kenya and Mozambique, where

some of its tobacco is grown.

Moukheiber said Bongani would launch in Nigeria this year

and, he hoped, the United Kingdom, and aims to be the cigar of

choice for African professionals who want to flaunt their wealth

or success.

"A cigar is ... just like champagne, just like some wines.

It's about the message," he said. "By smoking a Bongani you are

communicating ... your African identity."

He travelled to the Dominican Republic to recruit a head of

production, Anthony Padilla Perez, and move him to Maputo, where

he helped train a workforce in the precise art of rolling by

hand. Bongani now employs five rollers.

Becoming a household name won't be easy: Moukheiber admits

luxury markets are difficult to crack, and Bongani, which sold

its first cigar in 2016, can't boast 30-year-aged tobacco like

some rivals.

It prices its cigars around 10% less than the equivalent

Cuban, with its standard smoke selling for around $13. He says

they appeal to those looking for an African "terroir" - the

French term denoting taste imparted to wine by the environment

in which it is produced.

"When I got my first ... big order from a distributor from

South Africa I was almost in tears," Moukheiber recalls. "I had

never produced anything in my life that someone would want to

buy." 

WATCH: 

REUTERS

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