Foreign firms set to push agro packaging industry growth with innovative solutions

A total of 91 foreign firms from 26 countries have expressed their interest to push Nigeria’s food-tech industry to a new height by offering local agro producers contemporary packaging solutions that will help improve their products.

The firms, from Austria, Belgium, China, France, Germany, etc, who recently exhibited a variety of innovative packaging solutions in Lagos, say they are willing to partner indigenous agro firms in reshaping their end products and the sector at large.

Speaking at the exhibition in Lagos, Martin Marz, managing director, Fairtrade, said with the food and beverage sector contributing as much as 4.6 percent to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and not less than 66 percent total consumer expenditure, there was a need for operators in the sector to be innovative in meeting consumer’s appeal and taste.

Marz also emphasised that the spike in retail outlets over the last five years had significantly surged the demand for packaged food, adding that the rapid growth in the fast moving consumer goods sector had been a major driver for this growth, a trend that was expected to continue.

According to a study by Advantage Austria, the food and beverage sector is the largest segment of the Nigerian manufacturing industry, comprising 22 percent. It is estimated at £16 million in aggregate output.

“The Nigerian plastics and packaging sector has developed and grown to over 3,000 companies, a reflective of the trend in the local fast moving consumer goods and industry,” Marz said

This growth, the managing director said, has been driven by the increasing sophistication of the country’s middle class.

Quoting a Mckenzie & Company report, Marz said the plastics sub sector was expected to grow by 7 percent over the next 10 years.

According to the German Engineering Federation (VDMA), Nigerian imports of food processing and packaging machinery, between 2010 and 2013, increased from £198 million to £331 million, a plus of 67 percent within just three years. During the same period, imports of packaging machinery and equipment have also gone up from £86 million to £182 million.

Affirming the opportunities in the packaging sector, Akinwumi Adesina, minister of agriculture and rural development, in a remark at the exhibition, said the country’s agro value chain had been developed to help farmers offer competitive products that need to be uniquely packaged to appeal to consumers.

Adesina, who was represented by Yetunde Adejumo, a director in the ministry, said the agriculture production process and end products were now more robust and acceptable, hence the need for packaging.

 

ODINAKA MBONU