The Group Corporate Communications and Event Manager of Dufil Prima Foods Plc, manufacturers of Indomie Noodles, Mr Temitope Ashiwaju has observed that the wastage of goods from farms to consumers is one of the reasons for the high food prices.
Ashiwaju enjoined the stakeholders, including the government, to ensure that the wastage, especially from the production of goods were checked.
He spoke in an interview in Lagos on Saturday.
Ashiwaju said that although the government had introduced several food control measures to reduce food prices, there would be a need to reduce wastage.
“We have quite a lot of wastage in this country, not only among FMCGs (Fast Moving Consumer Goods); even the commodity sector, you have quite a lot of wastage.
“People produce, and that uptake is not there. Once you reduce the wastage, for instance, between the farm and the final consumers, food prices will reduce.
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“I believe that once the will to purchase is guaranteed by the government, a lot of people will return to the farm and begin to produce more, thereby forcing the prices of food to go down,” he said.
On commodity boards, Ashiwaju said that the nation needed such whose duty would be to secure the most favourable arrangements for the purchase of the relevant commodity and subsequent sale thereof to meet domestic requirements.
“The farmers also need to be guaranteed market.
“Some of us will go back into farming if we know that whatever we plant, there would be the market,” he said.
According to him, the firm is also navigating through these hard times to ensure that the masses are fed.
Ashiwaju said that presidential intervention such as what the president did to bring down the price of cement would also be needed in FMCG to reduce.
“The presidential intervention would mean that some of those policies that were introduced were reviewed, and once they are reviewed, prices start to stabilise.
“Automatically companies in the food sector will also toe that line, and it is the wish of every Nigerian that the prices of food ought to go down,” he said.
He added that if the cost of production continued to go down, automatically the prices of food would also go down.
“So, I hope that the government continues in that trajectory in ensuring things are relatively stable so that we can also have more of direct investment coming into the country,” he said.
He said that things that his company had been sourcing its raw materials locally unlike before to reduce cost of production.
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Ashiwaju said: “You are also aware that one of our biggest raw materials would be crude palm oil.
“We took a decision about 10 years ago and acquired almost 30,000 hectares of land in Edo purely for palm plantation.
“How many companies in Nigeria have taken those kinds of bold decisions?”
Commending some of the government’s interventions, Ashiwaju said it might take a while to get to where the country wanted to be.
He said that the country, however, needed consistency and block all economic leakages.
