The over 850 tobacco farmers’ sales value rose from N600 million
in 2012 to N680 million in 2013, representing an increase of N80 million.
The farmers operating under the aegis of Nigeria Independent Tobacco
Association (NITA) also grew tobacco production from 1,260 tonnes to
over 2,500 tonnes in 2013.
Francisco Toso, Area Operations Director, British American Tobacco
BAT who disclosed this at the 2014 BAT Nigeria/British American Tobacco
Iseyin Agronomy(BATIA) farmers’ productivity awards ceremony in
Iseyin,Oyo State said the company will continue to work with farmers
,the Nigerian government and other agriculture development focused
organisations to grow agricultural sector so as to occupy its position
as a priority sector in Nigeria’s economy.
Toso said the combined efforts
of the company’s technical support through extension workers and
passion of the farmers for increased productivity has resulted in
commendable volume growth over the last few years.
While saying tobacco farming is directly supporting more than 20,000
livelihoods, Toso noted that the award was set up not just to drive
sustainability with regards to productivity but also to ensure that the
environment is well managed in the process by including it as a key
criteria for participation.
In his address, Freddy Massanvi, Corporate and Regulatory Affairs
Director, BAT said responsible farming practices is usually a challenge
faced in agriculture globally and in Nigeria saying “we are no
different.”
According to Massanvi, with BAT and the contracted tobacco farmers, the
collaboration has proved that this can be achieved with continuous
engagement.
“This was clearly demonstrated again recently when BAT in partnership
with a Non Governmental 0rganisation(NGO),the Federal Ministry of
Labour and Productivity and Oyo State Ministry of Agriculture, Natural
Resources and Rural Development embarked on a series of elimination of
child labour workshops with the farmers in which they requested that
workshops be spread to other non-tobacco farmers”.
Chairman, Nigerian Independent Tobacco Association(NITA), Rasheed
Bakare who lauded the company for organising the awards, pledged
continuous support of the farmers and thanked the tobacco for providing
amenities like boreholes,support for farmers and scholarships for
undergraduates.
The Farmers Productivity Award Ceremony organised yearly to improve
the farmers’ productivity in terms of quality and volume of yield, as
well as encourage their adherence to principles of environmental
protection is also the sustainability of the company.
by Remi Feyisipo.
Nigeria is currently ranked second in Rand Merchant Bank, (RMB) Nigeria’s list of top investment destinations.
The pillars of RMB Nigeria’s investment rankings are based on growth,
market size and operating environment a combination of which makes up
total investment attractiveness, according to Nema Ramkhelawan Bhana,
Africa Analyst, at Rand Merchant Bank.
“Nigeria is already among the top 10 fastest growing economies
globally, while its share of total inward FDI into Africa stood at 12
percent in 2012,” said Bhana, who made a presentation at the maiden RMB
Nigeria Economic Breakfast, discussion with the title: ‘Nigeria – on the
fast track to being the leading economy in Africa,’ held in Lagos on
Wednesday.
Nigeria is ranked second just behind South Africa and ahead of Egypt by RMB as top Africa destinations for investment.
A breakdown of the ranking shows that Nigeria remains the most
favourable destination for retail in Africa, driven by demographic gains
from increasing population, rising real wages from increase in GDP per
capita and growing urbanization.
“We believe the topic of our first economic research series is
appropriate given recent global developments such as the EU slowdown and
scale back in quantitative easing by the US Federal Reserve,” said RMB
Nigeria chief executive Michael Larbie. “We expect these events to be
ongoing and hope they will be of benefit to all participants.”
The RMB event also featured four experts on the Nigerian economy:
Doyin Salami, full-time member at the Lagos Business School where he is
also a senior lecturer; Bismarck J. Rewane, managing director of
Financial Derivatives Company; and RMB research analysts Nema
Ramkhelawan-Bhana and Celeste Fauconnier who specialise in financial and
economic analysis of selected African countries, including Nigeria, in
the RMB Global Economics research team.
In their most recent ‘Where to Invest in Africa’ report they
predicted that Nigeria would overtake South Africa in the next few years
in terms of “investment attractiveness”, to reach the number one
position.
The session was interactive giving the wider business and economic
community the opportunity to share ideas and possibilities for future
co-operation with each other.
RMB, a division of FirstRand Bank, is a leading African corporate and
investment bank and part of one of the largest financial services
groups in Africa.
RMB has funded various infrastructure, resource finance, mergers and
acquisitions, and development projects in over 35 African countries in
the past decade.
The Central Bank of Nigeria granted RMB a merchant banking license on 22nd November 2012.
RMB has over 1 year of transactional experience in Nigeria having established a representative office in the country in 2010.
by PATRICK ATUANYA
An unknown number of Beef Sausage Rolls (BSR) are churned out daily in Nigeria. This supply is ex-pected to meet the demand of millions of Nigerians.
As con-sumers and producers work together, and apart, in this complicated dance towards satisfying their different interests, success comes down to what consumers do. Our research shows that even elements like packaging and religion affect demand. We also discovered that price discrimination could be a veritable tool to buoy demand, especially in Northern Nigeria.
Consumption pattern
Of the 300 BSR consumers we sam-pled, we discovered an element of age colouration in demand patterns. Seventy-four percent of consumers of the product are within the 20-40 years age bracket; much fewer (9 percent) are below the 19 years age bracket.
This is corroborated by the 70 percent who admit buying BSR during working hours (either in traffic or at shops near their working places).The data points to the fact that less adolescents and children consume BSR.
If this conclusion is combined with responses to the question “who first in-troduced you to BSR,” it can be deduced that the current generation of working adults were introduced to BSR by either their parents or older relatives (see chart I) but they in turn have not championed the cause of passing on the culture.
One respondent remarked that chil-dren are less inclined to buy BSR because of price (average price is N50). There are other flour based products which command “greater volume and divisibility”(in the eye of children).
Who is gaining street credibility?
In terms of brand loyalty, 73 percent of respondents said they consume the Gala brand regularly. But other brands like Super Bite (55 percent), Meaty (43percent) and Beefie (37 percent) are gain-ing considerable market share rapidly (Consumers consume different brands simultaneously weekly).
The Gala brand was introduced in the 1960s and remained the only BSR in the country for decades before the emergence of the new brands. Indeed, the competition is heating up as other brands and tastes are launched. We discovered that the brands a consumer consumes is determined by factors ranging from price to reputation of producer.
Forty-two percent respec-tively of respondents claimed they buy a brand because of its content and texture (see chart 4). In terms of texture most respondents (62 percent) prefer soft; just8 percent prefer hard. Marketing information for new en-trants to the industry: since consumers are inclined to buy either Relatively-Soft (31 percent) or Soft BSR, packaging, distribution and baking should all be focused on the preferred texture.
Selling more in the future
The survey throws up the fact that most consumers of BSR are constantly in motion. Those who will succeed in marketing BSR must adopt marketing strategies which are appealing to the
Meet Nigeria’s beef sausage roll consumers younger generation of Nigerians and move the products within their reach(moving off the road to meet the young where they are). Also, it is important to devise measures that market the product outside traffic (because legislation has the capacity to push sellers off the road).
Pricing, distribution and other mat-ters
We asked respondents to make recom-mendations for producers of BSR and there was a recurring decimal from sampled individuals in Northern states. Eighty-six percent of them indicted cost as a major drawback for very low income “potential” consumers. One suggested price discrimi-nation to encourage consumption while another encouraged smaller packages(some brands have started this). Another indicated that the Superbite market is large but the product is scarcely available up North.
Yet another respon-dent noted “Always indicate HALAL on the package because of the Muslims”. When asked for their advice for pro-ducers, 97 percent of respondents said they will be more impressed if producers added more beef. According to them beef is what makes the product essentially dif-ferent from bread.
The same respondents were not positively inclined to paying more for the extra beef. This is valuable intelligence for brands struggling to make that remarkable leap in patronage: Increase your beef content and lure the consumers to your brand.
The future of the BSR market
According to South African based Tiger Brands Limited, Gala consumption in Nigeria is unlimited; but more than that what is clear is that the demand and sup-ply for BSR could be stretched further in Nigeria if the right steps are taken.
There is need to drive the market to younger Nigerians and to use price discrimination creatively to gain market share. Apart from this, there is need from emerging brands to be more daring in making the initial sacrifices for market share. We discovered that the growth is in the hinterland, rural areas and up North.
