The distributor depot sat behind a wide metal gate that opened every few minutes for delivery vans. Asha arrived with Juma at ten in the morning. Mariam, the depot supervisor, met them in a small office overlooking the loading bay.
“We are showing records for your two accounts only,” Mariam said before anyone sat down. “No other customers. No route information that does not concern you.”
“That is enough,” Asha said.
On the table were receiving logs, route sheets and archived photographs of sealed cartons from selected campaigns. Asha placed a copy of the `SAF-AFYA-Q3` campaign code beside her package photos.
Mariam began with Mti Market’s delivery. The route sheet listed the truck, date, quantity and Musa’s receiving signature. A photograph attached to the record showed sealed cartons before loading.
Asha leaned toward the screen. “Can you zoom in on the sticker?”
The campaign code appeared clearly.
Then they opened Juma’s delivery record. It fell within three days of Asha’s. The same campaign code was present, while the package samples Juma had preserved from that period carried different wording.
Kelvin joined by conference call.
“I want us to be careful,” he said. “A carton code does not prove the exact unit mix after cartons were opened in a shop.”
Mariam replied, “That is why we are separating sealed-carton records from retailer observations.”
Asha did not argue beyond the evidence. “Fine. Let us stay with what the depot can verify.”
Mariam explained how the depot handled the product. Safina Afya was picked by SKU. Different artwork versions sharing one SKU were not treated as different products in the warehouse system.
“So a picker would see them as the same item?” Asha asked.
“Yes, unless the supplier master data separated them.”
“Can you prove the supplier never separated them?”
“No. I can prove only what our system contained.”
Juma muttered that everyone around Asha had started talking like a witness.
They walked into the loading bay wearing reflective vests. Mariam opened an archived receiving image. Two Safina Afya cartons with different print marks appeared on one pallet.
Asha felt the urge to treat it as a breakthrough, but stopped herself.
“Does the image have a date?”
“Yes.”
“Receiving source?”
“Yes.”
“Can we identify the product?”
Mariam zoomed in. “SKU and campaign code are visible.”
Juma said, “Then the retailers did not create that difference here.”
Kelvin’s voice came through the speaker. “The photo shows different cartons. It does not show the package wording inside them.”
Asha nodded. “Correct. We will not claim more than the photo shows.”
The stronger link came from the batch references in the receiving log. The ranges corresponded to package samples Asha and Juma had preserved: one old wording, one newer wording. Both fell inside overlapping delivery periods under the same campaign code.
Kelvin was silent for several seconds.
Asha said, “This does not establish a manufacturing defect. It does not establish illegal labeling. It establishes that package variants entered the distribution chain before individual retailer display.”
Mariam answered, “For the records we reviewed, yes.”
Kelvin said, “That is a normal transition scenario.”
“Possibly,” Asha replied. “Then the next question is what guidance retailers received during a normal transition.”
No one answered immediately.
Mariam clarified that the depot did not control shelf cards. Promotional materials could move separately through sales teams. The chain therefore had two overlapping tracks: physical packaging and retail communication.
That was exactly the mismatch Asha had been trying to describe.
Back in the office, they drafted a joint note. Mariam rejected the phrase “mixed labels were distributed” and replaced it with a narrower statement: cartons associated with different package variants were received and routed within overlapping delivery periods under one SKU and campaign code.
Asha accepted the correction.
Juma groaned. “This language could kill a person.”
Mariam replied, “But it will not lie.”
Kelvin requested a copy. Asha said the approved version would move through Imara after Juma and Mariam reviewed the final wording. A conference call would not become a shortcut around consent.
Before leaving, Asha asked Mariam one last question.
“If a retailer had asked during that period whether old and new wording might arrive close together, could your system have answered?”
“Not from the SKU alone. They would have needed a batch reference or an artwork notice from the supplier.”
“Did you receive an artwork notice?”
“Not in the records provided for this review.”
Asha wrote *not found in reviewed records*, not *did not exist*.
On the way out, Juma said, “You would document the air if you could.”
“The air is where people fill gaps with assumptions.”
The retailer-storage defense had not vanished, but it could no longer explain everything by itself. Responsibility had moved upward into the coordination of packaging and campaign communication.
On the route sheet, two batches with different wording sit under the same campaign delivery code.
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