By Chijioke Kingsley
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – The call by the Federal Government for Nigerians to patronize made in Nigeria goods and services was aimed at boosting local production and to enhance the growth of the nation’s economy.
The Federal Government had said it would focus on creating the enabling environment for the sector to thrive, as well as ensuring the effective implementation of Nigeria’s Industrial Revolution Plan.
“The strategic plan is to support local manufacturing of goods and services for local and international consumption”, FG had said.
An economic expert had lauded President Mohammadu Buhari over his administration’s ongoing efforts at diversifying the Nigerian economy, as well as his interest in making the nation’s manufacturing sector a strong element for national development.
However hitting the ground running, the NASCO Group, established in 1963 as one of the largest Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCGs), with headquarters in the city of Jos, leveraged on the FG’s interest to providing enabling environment for local manufacturers to thrive to increase it’s varieties and saturate the Nigerian market.
“This is not to say that NASCO has not been in production of FMCGs, but the FG’s body language is a sure boost and confidence motivator”, Mr. Haroun Audu, Public Affairs Advisor for NASCO said in one of our interview sections.
Although the recent economic contraction in the country, which meant low purchasing power for consumers, impacted negatively on the bottom line of companies in the FMCG sector, the race for market domination for foods especially in Nigeria’s cereal breakfast category becomes more intensified.
This was further strengthened by the growing class of professionals who prefer daily breakfast cereals over more time-consuming traditional breakfast meals such as “pap” (a hot cornmeal).
Also, the ever-increasing child population in the country contributes to the surge in demand for cereal meals, as children are the major targets for the NASCO breakfast cereals.
Currently, NASCO cereal is the leading brand in the Nigerian market as well as It’s biscuits, snacks, detergents, soaps, sugar etc.
The NASCO Cornflakes was launched in 1983 and introduced to the Nigerian market in 1985. The company since then has introduced a variety of cornflakes into the market such as the frosted flakes and the corn flakes vanilla brands.
While these brands enjoys a lot of goodwill in the market, feedback from consumers shows that they are hungry for more.
A peep into NASCO’s website elucidates that NASCO is home to many famous brands that consumers trust.
“A lot of our brands have been around for many years, while some have been developed more recently to meet changing market trends.
“Since we operate in a wide variety of local and regional markets, we carefully align our business with the wishes and needs of our end consumers. While we produce products of international standards, the majority of our brands are sold in these marketplaces, and thus meet local tastes and requirements”.
No wonder the federal government chose NASCO to handle the school feeding programme.
Also in an interaction with Audu, on the choice of NASCO for the school feeding programme, he said: “The Federal Institute for Industrial Research (FIIRO), formulated a high nutrient density biscuit which it said would serve the purpose of a recommended daily allowance for nutritional value addition to a child of school-going age, precisely ages 5-12.
“This idea, according to FIIRO, could not go very far except with the collaboration of institutions and entities that have capacity to work on it, refine it, and mass produce it. It was from there that FIIRO came up with the idea to partner with NASCO.
“FIIRO chose NASCO because it is one of the oldest food and biscuit and house-hold manufacturing companies in Nigeria. It is about 55 years old in Nigeria. The partnership became more possible as FIIRO is a federal government agency”, Audu said.