, April 16, 2015-British Expertise International recognized Nathan London for its highly successful work on the Food Industry Challenge Fund (FRICH) on April 14 at London’s Royal Garden Hotel. Nathan London was represented by Ignacio Fiestas, Kerry Hamilton, Mark Thomas, and Meera Mehta (left to right in photo), all of whom worked on the award-winning project. Ngoc Do and Maggie Pagel, who now works at Nathan Associates in Arlington, Virginia, also contributed to the project.

British Expertise is an association of professional services firms, ranging from large corporations and global consultancies to specialist firms. Each year the 250-member organization awards members who have made exceptional contributions in their fields of expertise. This year, Nathan London was selected for the Outstanding International Development (Non-Infrastructure) Project award. To win that award, nominees, projects had to meet four criteria: cultivate sustainableresults, satisfy clients, take a teamwork approach with local partners, and demonstrate flexibility to meet changing needs and cultural challenges.

BEI said that Nathan London’s FRICH project “successfully demonstrated how the private sector can solve the problems and challenges associated with developing the food export trade from Africa to sophisticated\r\nmarkets in Europe.”

All told, FRICH supported 25 subprojects and developed business models and relationships along complex supply chains from farms to retail shelves.These projects involved 90,000 farmers in 14 African countries; established partnerships between retailers, category managers, commodity and trading companies, service providers and farmer organizations; solved technical, logistical, organizational and institutional problems; and established sustainable trade sustained. “Importantly,the projects increased the appetite of businesses to replicate successful models elsewhere and to seek new trade opportunities.”