The Nigerian Breweries (NB) Plc has said that it was making
plans to increase sourcing of raw materials like sorghum, Food Grade Starch and
others locally from 57 to 60 per cent by 2020.
Mr Patrick Olowookere, Corporate Communications and Brand
Public Relations Manager, made the disclosure to newsmen during a facility tour
in Ado Awaiye in Iseyin area of Oyo State on Wednesday.
Olowookere said the company was always looking at ways to
partner with local farmers and processors to develop agricultural value chains
that would strengthen the economy and save foreign exchange.
According to him, “through these partnerships, many farmers
have been impacted, especially through its out-grower schemes in sorghum
production.
He said: “Over 250,000 sorghum farmers have benefited in the
northern agronomical zones as at 2013, producing over the 100,000 tons the
company needs annually.
“That is enough to meet our production for our growing
customers. We want to try as much as we can to further reduced the volume of
imported of raw materials.
“By 2020, Nigerian Breweries would have finalised plans to
increase its sourcing of raw materials from 57 to 60 per cent, the margin is
small but apt.
Psaltry International Company (Ltd), a Food Grade Starch
producing firm and others in sorghum is what gives us the assurance of quality
products to suit the needs of our consumers,’’ he said.
“The firm uses CSRO 1 and 2 species of sorghum because it
had a higher yield of two tons per hectare and had certifications from the
Federal Ministry of Agriculture and a Rural Development.
Olowookere also said that Psaltry Company was the only
partner producing Food Grade Starch for Nigerian Breweries.
Meanwhile, the Managing Director of the processing plant,
Mrs Yemisi Iranloye, said that the distance of transporting harvested cassava
to cities like Lagos and Akure prompted the location of the plant.
Iranloye said that the company now satisfied farmers who
were treated as agents in the business through trainings, provision of hybrid
cassava stems, fertilisers, pesticides and others.
“What really steered my coming to this community was the
fact that having had experiences in the system; I understood the huddles
farmers had to go through to transport their produce to urban cities.
“Most of the time, the cassava would have gone bad and
farmers would be at a loss because the companies will not pay them, now we have
been able to solve that problem.
“Currently, NB is one of our major client off-taking 60 per
cent of our Food Grade Starch used as binding agents in producing most
beverages, foods, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.
“Farmers in the community have been empowered over the years
to increase production to 500 hectares through the Credit Agricultural Scheme
of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) driven by us, and in the first year,
remitted 95 per cent.
“Through these, we are always in production even when the
country had challenges in availability of cassava recently, we had supplies to
service our customers like NB,’’ she said.
The plant has an installed capacity of 50 tons of processed
starch daily and it is currently producing below capacity of between 20 to 30
tons daily.
The company also recorded that it saved 4 million dollars as
import substitution in 2015.
NAN
0 comments:
Post a Comment