West African Distribution Company
Africa makesgreat products.We make themeasier to find.
WADCO builds the distribution, demand and intelligence infrastructure connecting African consumer brands with America.
The market
The products are already here. The infrastructure is catching up.
African consumer brands arrive in the U.S. with the hard part done: recognition, loyalty, a product people grew up with. What they lack is the layer that turns a shipment into a shelf presence — and a shelf presence into a market.
KIVO 4-in-1 · 40 packs per case
Starting with a brand people already love
KIVO isn't an experiment. It's a product with a memory.
KIVO's gari soaking mix is the taste of a specific afternoon — a bowl at a grandmother's table, a school lunch, a first apartment. Across the West African diaspora it is recognized instantly and asked for by name. What it has never had in North America is a distributor that treats it that way.
What working with WADCO means
One partner. Four things you can count on.
Your shelf stays full.
Retailers get weekly local delivery instead of waiting on a container. Brands get one accountable partner from port to shelf.
Customers come to you.
We sample at the churches and markets your customers already go to, and send them to partner stores by name.
You see what sells.
Retailers learn when to reorder before they run out. Brands finally get sell-through by store, not just a shipping receipt.
Growth with proof behind it.
A product that works in one network opens the next city with numbers, not guesses — for the brand and for the stores that carry it.
Distribution isn't just moving boxes. It's building a market.
For retailers
More than a wholesaler.
Your distributor should help you sell, not just deliver.
For brands & manufacturers
Your product shouldn't have to cross an ocean and then figure America out alone.
WADCO helps African brands enter, build and scale in the U.S. market — with a partner that reports back.
WADCO Intelligence
Distribution gives us the boxes. Intelligence tells us where they should go.
| Reorder recommendation | Days left | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Partner store · Concourse | — | Deliver |
| Partner store · Highbridge | — | Deliver |
| Partner store · Bedford Park | — | Hold |
| Partner store · Harlem | — | Deliver |
This is the shape of the dashboard, not its contents: units sold, velocity, inventory days, reorder recommendations and campaign performance are tracked from the first case delivered. No figures are shown until they are real. Live retailer and brand views are in development.
Where we're building
Starting where the demand already lives.
The Bronx and Harlem hold the densest West African retail corridors in the country. That's the proving ground. The network grows outward along the same communities: New York → New Jersey → Philadelphia → DMV → U.S.
Founder
Built from the gap between great products and difficult access.
Akua Sarpong is a pharmacist who founded WADCO to build the distribution infrastructure she saw missing between African consumer brands and the growing African consumer market in the United States.
She moved to the U.S. at a young age and missed the foods she had eaten almost every day. The African stores carried the staples — but rarely the snacks and brands you actually grew up eating. The only reliable ways to get them were ordering online at a steep markup, or waiting for someone to bring a suitcase from home. That problem hasn't gone away. WADCO is the first step toward solving it.
WADCO is starting in the Bronx and Harlem. The ambition is much bigger.
Portals
Retailer Portal
Orders. Inventory. Sell-through. Replenishment.
Brand Portal
Distribution performance. Market intelligence. Retail growth.
Partner with us
Have a product that belongs in America? Let's build the market.
Brands, retailers and community partners: tell us who you are and we'll reply within two business days.