What it does: provides branded consumer products, with a brand portfolio that spans a range of categories including fashion apparel, footwear, cosmetics, personal care products, accessories, hot beverages, sweet and savoury snacks and biscuits and frozen convenience foods.
Best known for: AVI is home to household names and South African favourites including Five Roses, Freshpak, Bakers, Pyotts, I&J, Ciro, Lavazza, Yardley, Lentheric, Lacoste, Spitz, and Kurt Geiger.
Staff stats: 10,649+
The good bits: Career advancement opportunities, a diverse, multicultural workforce, performance incentives, and extensive training.
The not-so-good bits: Long hours and a demanding, fast-paced work environment.
AVI, a public company incorporated in South Africa, engages in the processing, manufacture, marketing, sale, and distribution of branded consumer products. It focuses on fast-moving consumer goods in the beverage, food, and fashion categories with an extensive portfolio of more than 50 brands, most of which are household names in South Africa and internationally known.
The company is divided into numerous segments. Entyce Beverages engages in the selling of coffee, tea, and creamer in South Africa and surrounding countries; I&J fishes in South African waters and processes, markets, and distributes them locally and internationally (Australia and Europe); Snackworks is a snacks brand that sells locally and in neighbouring countries; a variety of fashion brands that offer apparel and footwear; Personal Care, including Indigo Brands that manufactures, creates, and distributes toiletry and cosmetic products locally and in surrounding countries; footwear and apparel, including Green Cross, Spitz, and Gant brands with a portfolio of owned and licensed apparel and footwear brands in South Africa.
AVI operates using a Shared Services structure that spans IT, finance, international, marketing, logistics, field marketing, and procurement. The company had an R 13.15 billion turnover for 2019, with an operating profit of R 2.52 billion, and headline earnings of 1696.2 billion.
According to insiders, AVI has a high-performance, energetic, dynamic, and sometimes demanding work environment. This is a plus for adventurous graduates who are always ready for the next challenge but a drawback for laidback workers who easily get burned out. Thankfully, workers who feel like they're lagging behind will find security in the presence of a supervisor. The company puts a premium on training and mentoring and the urge to teach and assist is embedded into all members of management.
AVI's corporate social investment program aims to contribute to sustainable economic development through working with its employees, their families, communities, and society. The company's primary focus areas are arts and culture, education and skills development, and the environment.
Among AVI's projects include a tertiary bursary program; Heartworks, an organisation that offers life skills courses to prisoners with maximum sentences; the Learn to Earn program that assists unemployed individuals with financial skills to become economically active; the AVI Star Schools Incubator Programme offers grade 10 to 12 children from 27 township schools to attend classes in English, math, and science; and the Rural Education Access Programme (REAP) that helps selected high school graduates from poor communities access tertiary education.
With more than 50 brands in its portfolio, AVI is a company for adventurous graduates who want to explore the world of retail without being confined into one corner. Numerous job advancement opportunities, extensive training, and performance incentives offer great reasons to stay, but the demands of the company may prove to be too much for some workers who aren't used to a fast-paced environment.
The recruitment process varies from role to role, but insiders report that interviews begin with an online application on the AVI website. Promising applicants are invited for a phone interview and a series of online assessments and face-to-face interviews. Graduates may expect questions about their resume, work ethics, strengths, weaknesses, or related experiences. A degree of formality may be needed when choosing interview attire. Accepted applicants are subject to a physical and background check. The process may take a day to a month.
AVI's 24-month graduate program exposes students to a variety of challenging projects which make a direct difference to the company. Opportunities are offered to learn from seniors and mentors within the business. In its 2019 intake, AVI searched for promising applicants in engineering, quality, sales, supply chain, and marketing.
AVI offers a competitive base salary. Fringe benefits may include annual performance bonuses, long-term incentive plans, access to retirement funds and medical aid benefits, and paid leave, among others.