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."