Promasidor was founded in 1979 by Robert Rose, who left the United Kingdom in 1957 for Zimbabwe to pursue his African dream. As Chairman of Allied Lyons Africa for over 20 years, he travelled extensively across Africa and gained a unique and thorough knowledge of the food industry throughout the continent. In particular he noticed a lack of availability of the one highly nutritious product that the developed world takes for granted - milk. He realised that with technology in the manufacture of milk powders advancing rapidly, there was an exciting opportunity to provide milk powder in small portions that could be packaged in flexible sachets. It was found that removing the animal fat from the milk and replacing it with vegetable fat allowed for a longer shelf life. This meant that for the first time, milk powder could be distributed across the vast African continent, providing access to affordable milk to everyone in Africa. A passionate belief in this vision fuelled the pioneering concept of selling filled milk powder in small sachets and Promasidor began selling the Cowbell brand in the Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire) in 1979. Today Cowbell is sold in the majority of countries across the African continent.