Borno food factory struggles to live

Part of the company’s woes started from the departure of its first Indian owners leading to its being given out on receivership. And by the time its current owners acquired it, the company, had already incurred several liabilities including payment of staff.  According to the farm manager, Nasiru Umar, the current owners are determined to […]

Part of the company’s woes started from the departure of its first Indian owners leading to its being given out on receivership. And by the time its current owners acquired it, the company, had already incurred several liabilities including payment of staff.  
According to the farm manager, Nasiru Umar, the current owners are determined to restore the company (which is based in Jura Gar-Gar, Bayo Local Government of Borno State) to its past glory so that Vegfru tomato paste, ketchup and other processed foods will be back in the Nigerian food market.
He said, “After the changing of the company from the former vegetable and food processing company, it was sold to Savannah Integrated Farms. And when Savannah came in we started production from 2001 to 2006. The capacity we were running was less than what we required because of the ageing of the machines. Most of the machines are outdated. Some are even more than 38 years here. So, we advised our head office to at least look into that problem. That is what even brought the issue of reorganisation.
So, we have to scrap all the machines and bring new technology which you can see now on ground. We bought new machines whose capacity almost double what we had before. Before, we had three crushing lines which was 150 metric tonnes capacity per each line.  And now, we bought only one line with 600 metric tonnes capacity per day,” he said.
But the company is still suffering from financial and security challenges which its competitors 90% of which the farm manager said are outside Nigeria do not have.
Umar said, “Of the major challenges, one is the issue of financing, two the issue of insecurity, we have expatriates; we bought the machines from Italy, they’re supposed to come and install them. Now they have installed almost 40 to 45% of the machines, but up till now they are not back.
  “You know there is this security problem. You know we are in Borno. If anybody heard of Borno, he will be scared. So, that even contributed. Then some of our containers are still lying at the port, we are waiting for clearance. Because of the delay we have in their arrival, some of the machines  will not be complete without the coming of those containers.
“But some of the lines here are complete like the filling to packaging line. But some parts of the crushing line are not complete. Some are lying in port now. They have arrived the country waiting for clearance.
“Then we scrapped the can-making line also because the old line is using lead, while the new line now is a modern line whose capacity is even more than the one we had before. While the old line produced 400 cans per minute, the new line produces 600 cans per minute. And everything is complete.”
Though the company is just doing skeletal service to enable them pay salaries and other logistics, Umar said the company will start running at full capacity by 2015.
 But another problem that will challenge the company in the processed food market is the fact that up till now its farmers have to dig their own boreholes and get power generators to power it.
The farm manager said, “We have many competitors that are not Nigerians. Most of the paste being marketed in Nigeria, at least 90% of them are imported from outside the country. And the cost of production outside Nigeria is less than the cost in the country because of may be two problems: one, lack of electricity; two, very high cost of diesel. We are using very big generators and our fuel consumption is very high. Then our boiler oil,  that is black oil, consumption is very high. So, without subsidizing this fuel or without ensuring steady power supply, I don’t think we can make profit.”
On whether government can help control importation in favour of indigenous producers he said: “Yes, there is a programme organised by CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria) NIRSAL (Nigeria Incentive Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending) in which we are participating, we have already imported our machines, if Dangote Group imports their own; may be if we can meet the target of the federal government, it can be convinced to stop importing paste from outside. Or we can even export our own to other countries.
“With this capacity that we have, I know we can crush much; we can produce bulk paste and even to sell it to other producers. And with the new can-making line now, we can produce for other customers. The 600 cans per minutes is more than what our company requires. So, we can market it out. And other producers can bring contract for can making or packaging, and we will do it for them.”