The dairy industry in Nigeria is one segment of the manufacturing sector that is currently attracting investment inflow. In this interview with KEMI LAWAL, Director in charge of Sales and Marketing, BOBO Foods and Beverages Limited, Mr. Adekunle Curtis, speaks on the industry and how his company has contributed to its growthWhat is your assessment of the dairy industry in Nigeria' Basically, I must say that this industry is one that is still quite viable, with so much ground yet uncovered, and resources yet untapped. We are just growing except for the fact that a few of the players in the industry do not want to take some risks; they dont want to be creative and they dont want to be innovative. If you go outside the shores of Africa, you will see a whole lot that there is to offer as regards the dairy industry. You will see substitutes, supplements, complements within the same industry. In Ghana and South Africa, their dairy industry is doing a whole lot better than what we have in Nigeria . This is because over there we have people that are willing to go the extra mile, I mean people that are willing to discover what is yet to be known. The setting here is docile because more than ninety percent of the players in the industry are content with playing the followers role.What are some of the challenges facing the industry' The industry faces, perhaps, the same problems as every other industry in the country. Power, for instance, is a global phenomenon, at least, as far as Nigeria is concerned. It is unstable, and when it is there, it is not reliable. Talking about economic indices as they border on inflationexchange rate and other indicatorsto mention a few, they are something global. But then a few things, like unethical practices, where people instead of going out of their way to see what they can come up with are content with copying you, have become a form of challenge. Some will even go to the extent of imitating your bottle, your label and packaging design, even when you had all these fully registered. In some countries of the world, if you attempt such, your entire establishment goes down.Secondly, we must not forget that this industry is one that relies heavily on electricity and power because a couple of what we deliver at the moment are supposed to be sold in their chilled state. I remember when I visited China or Dubai, I discovered that most of these things are sold in such a manner that you buy straight from ice. There were some products I saw in Dubai, whose lifespan was just four days. This simply tells you that once the product leaves ice, it should be consumed. But we cant operate a system like that in Nigeria because there is no power supply. As an establishment here, we have been cut off from Power Holding Company of Nigerias supply lines for about three years and we have been running the company on gas.How effective would you consider legislations aimed at controlling counterfeiting and faking' In Nigeria, we have bodies that regulate things like these. but the truth of the matter is that these laws are hardly enforced, and if you have to push further and say let us head for the courts, you will be spending and wasting resources and time.These bodies are actually there if not, we would not have been able to register our bottle shape, label, size and design, among others. However, getting them to enforce all of these things is such a Herculean task. Instead of going the whole hog to fight counterfeiters, we just keep pushing for market share. It is really painful because we have a set of people who actually earn salaries to do this.Notwithstanding, I still feel that if we have to really grow as a country, as an economy, some of these things must be looked into. I cannot begin to tell you how difficult it was for us to send a consignment to Ghana on demand. The regulatory body there ensured that there was no semblance of our product in Ghana and that was one of the things that made us to go and open a factory in that country.The industry is a very large one. What segment is likely to be a market leader' Some 10 or 15 years ago, we would have been talking about yoghurt and ice cream. But as I speak with you, the trend has changed in the last five or six years. Everywhere in Nigeria today, they talk about fruit milk drink, and that is why almost on annual basis, you have new entrants into this segment of the market.What is Bobos ranking in the market' It may not just be right for me to tell you that this is our position in the market presently for strategic reasons. Consumers and the general public have two ways of telling the entire world who the market leader is; and that is with their mouth and with their legs. With their mouth they would consume the brand; with it they would talk to other people about the brand, convince others to consume it; and with their legs, they will either walk away or walk closer to the brand.Indicators are actually there in the market to determine who the market leader is, but I can tell you for sure that we are not doing badly as far as the dairy industry is concerned. In 2011, we have gotten over 11 awards both locally and internationally.What is the trend in the industry in terms of product development, and where does your company come in' Some six or seven years ago when fruit milk business actually came into Nigeria, the sector was actually docile and dormant because there were no competitors, and the operators then felt it was a field day for them. But since we came on board, we have been able to add value, change the setting as well as adjust the mindset of Nigerians.I will give you an instance. Before we came on board, there was nothing like road shows in the industry. I am proud to say that we introduced that. In the last few years, we have had several programmes in states where we had in attendance between 3,000 and 5,000 children.What product line is Bobo Foods and Beverages developing currently' As a way of advancing in our product depth, we have set up two new factories; one in Lagos and the other in Ghana. The former cost the company about N2bn. The second one is still ongoing, with its cost. We are also introducing our yoghurt brand, called Boyic. The package is very unique and there is nothing like it in the country as I speak.We are through with the National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control procedures and we will soon begin massive production. The brand was at the Lagos International Trade Fair, and would be at the Port Harcourt International Trade Fair.What is the success prospect of this new product, especially in a highly competitive environment' We have taken our time to look at the yoghurt segment of the market and we have seen some gaps that we have come out to fill. We have also studied how other companies that are into the yoghurt business structure their marketing team and noticed their shortcomings. So, we know for sure that we have the capacity to excel and make a whole lot of difference.By and large, if you consider the period we are in, you will notice how strategic it is for any establishment to be introducing yoghurt drink at this point in time. The end of the year is a wonderful period and every dairy company knows this is about the peak period.BOBO is a brand that has a wide network. We know what it has cost us to build such a vast network. So, we would be leveraging that surely. We are looking at a situation whereby what it took us three years to achieve with BOBO fruit milk will be achieved much earlier in one year of Boyic yoghurt sales.The implication is that your company has joined the bandwagon of companies that have moved to Ghana' BOBO is a Nigerian brand, but the truth of the matter is we have a lot of people calling from Ghana, who want to be part of what is happening in Nigeria. We did not move the Nigerian factory to Ghana; we only set up another factory in Ghana.On a weekly basis here in Nigeria, we still send out more than 300,000 cases of BOBO. About this same volume goes into the market. So, obviously nobody will tell me that we are not doing well enough for us to think of leaving Nigeria.It was as a result of the difficulties we had moving products to Ghana that prompted us to open a factory in Ghana. The market there is a viable one; that was why we went there. There is no need for us to run out of Nigeria, especially since we have found solutions to a couple of challenges that compel some establishments to leave Nigeria. For instance, I spoke about electricity. We have been able to come out of that forever. We no longer rely on PHCN, and we dont intend going back to them.Where do you see the company in the next 10 years' We have been on for like five years as an establishment and people think we have been around longer, based on our market size. Many products today sell on the strength of our name. If we have been able to come this far in such a little time, then I think it will also be fair to say in the next 10 years, we will be ranked among multinationals.We intend to get to that point where there is hardly a family in Nigeria that does not have children or adults, who are addicted to the quality that we offer. We want to be like Unilever, whose products are not in a family in Nigeria.
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