Umair Jaliawala

Burque

Starting our business streak in 1967 as manufacturers of Battery Cells, the visionary Business acumen of its founder members helped in the diversification and expansion of business into trading, leading to creation of separate business under the umbrella of Burque Corporation. Exploiting maximum leverage and benefits from the long expertise and experiences of its ancestors in the distribution business, they finally concluded a landmark agreement with Nestle SA, Switzerland in 1976 to be the exclusive distributors of their products in Pakistan. From 1974 to 1989, the mainstream business was the marketing and distribution of Nestlé products. Their aggressive and push sales strategy for door to door selling played predominately a vital role in making ground breaking success in short period. By 1989, Burque was distributing Nestlé products directly through nine branches located across Pakistan. Later in 1989, Nestlé Switzerland entered into a joint venture with Milkpak Ltd. for the local manufacturing of its products. Burque eventually restructured its entire Distribution network, covering complete territories of Sindh and Baluchistan. At that time, the region contributed about 70% of total Nestlé products sale in Pakistan. Burque is associated with Nestle in Karachi, Mehran Progressive Distributors in Sindh, and Bolan Progressive Distributors in Baluchistan. All other principals fall under the umbrella of NPD Pvt. Ltd. The above business ventures lead the company to earn a distinctive reputation of a well-diversified distribution house of FMCG goods in the categories of food, non-food, chilled and frozen products, serving thousands of customers across Pakistan. Realizing the distribution business as its main forte, the company eventually through geographical expansion targeted the African continent to establish its first footprints in Tanzania, by entering into a business venture with Unilever to become their sole distributor in that region.