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Ayo Alonge
Olabode Lewis is a businessman and an entrepreneur who heads Nu Eden, a fast growing startup in the country specialising in the processing, granulation of flour and bagging of farm products like maize, cassava, rice, yam and garri.
In this interview, the agric consultant shares his entrepreneurial experiences so far while affirming that local governments, and not the Federal Government, should oversee the regulation and management of small and medium scale businesses in the country.
Background
I am an agriculturist by profession. I studied Agriculture and for more than 10 years, I have been into agriculture and it has always been part of me. I started agric consultancy when I was in school and I specialised in Fishery. I was doing it around Ekiti. It was part of me that some of my clients used to call me Bode Fish. I started as a fishery consultant and that was when an NGO contacted me to help them with facilitating the knowledge for some people. At a point, I was into partnership with a friend. We knew we were going to grow large very soon.
Business challenges
Looking back from where I started from, the challenges have not been different from what others go through. You have to distinguish between the actual farming and processing. We really wanted to make that big and we did. We invested in a farmland in Oyo stat but few years down the line, herdsmen invaded the land. That really affected us so much that it ran us into a big setback. As a strong man that I call myself, we tried to bounce back and that was when we were able to do some things. We actually doubled our investments. Soon, the herdsmen came again and invaded our farm and that swept me into a state of depression. When I hear that people commit suicide, I would always question why they do but I knew better. I encouraged myself and I started asking questions if suicide was the best option. If what you have is not enough for what you want, then, take what you have and invest it in what you want. When I looked around me, all I saw were bags of maize. It just dawn on me that I could start processing. The problem of this country is not in production but in how products get to the end users. We hardly have these storage facilities that can sustain us in the country. I started with bagging maize flour. We call it corncass. That is a mixture of corn and cassava. People started buying. Some started buying to distribute for outreaches to people. What the herdsmen did to us is yet to be recovered. The estimated cost should be close to N4.5 million. The worth of the plantain plantation alone was over N2.5 million. I told myself that the fact that I don’t produce doesn’t mean I cannot process. Why can’t I just buy from farmers and process? There is sense in buying from farmers and processing. For that, we started expanding our products. We soon moved from maize flour to rice flour, to yam flour, to garri. As a matter of fact, our garri is still the best in the country today. We are particular about processing the best garri. I have not seen just one person that tasted our garri and didn’t make a good statement about us. They can’t all be lying.
Processing and branding
Processing is the right way to going so we have had to take that aspect of agriculture serious. The Ivorian cocoa farmers have actually discovered that there there is no much sense in exporting their cocoa to Europe only to import beverages and chocolates at crazy prices. Processing is all about adding value to a raw material. When value goes out to consumers, that is all that matters in agribusiness. We won’t be complaining, especially when we have enough money for the business. The cost of running the business can be very challenging. Truth is that we are not where we should be at all. We started with maize flour and I discovered that people’s tastes are different. The reason most African children are malnourished is because most of our foods are devoid of the necessary nutrients. You eat eba for breakfast, take garri in the afternoon and take rice at night. We all take cornflakes. Most of the nutrients that the manufacturer said it contains are all from maize. There are some cereals that have reasonable nutrients too. That tells you that we have a whole lot of ideas yet to be executed. Right now, we have maize flour, unripe plantain flour, garri, yam flour which we call “elubo”. That is produced from real yam. All of that contains so much vitamins. We are actually conscious of the nutritional value of these products that’s why they are written on the packs of each product. Your body should be able to digest what you eat, if it is nutritious. Another is the rice flour. Children love it so much.
Retail marketing of products
There is a structure that you need to fit in, if you must ensure that your products get to a vast majority of end users. Sometimes, if you don’t have huge funds, you may not be able to cover much because an average wholesaler wants to have the products on credit. I have seen that the Federal Government has been trying to do a whole lot to encourage young manufacturers and SMEs. But then, you will have to fight through the hurdle of registering with NAFDAC and other regulatory agencies. If you want to go into the business of food processing, you can be given a probation time of six months. If you can’t meet up with supplies, then we will know. If we must make SMEs to grow here, there must be an entire overhauling of the system such that we encourage small investors.
Marketing strategy
I know my markets already. In Lagos, for instance, the market is huge, although we are having some challenges which are not insurmountable though. Sales has been fantastic even though we still need more awareness and more customers to patronise us.
Growing the business
We need to always ensure that our products are up to standard. We need to see that all stumbling blocks before us get solved and all the paper works a tidied. There are some markets already steering at us. At the moment, I can say that demand is more than supply. I keep receiving calls and chats for supply. The truth of the matter is that one of the problems is logistics. Check out Nigerians in the last two years and you will see that things have been a little bit slow in the economy. I am not saying government hasn’t been trying; all I am saying that the purchasing power of people have been going down.
Competition
Apart from the fact that the market is huge, competition personally makes me better. The three basic needs of man are food, clothing and shelter. I try to do more and based on my analysis, I always want to do things different from others. I have friends that we do almost the same thing. I don’t even see them as my competitors and people keep wondering why. I even explain secrets of the business to them. I know you can’t produce just exactly the way I do. If I hoard ideas from you, how about the other competitors I don’t know? Maybe that’s because of my background. I don’t hold back when it is time for me to help people. There is the saying that “you may not reap where you sow but you will definitely reap what you sow”. To me, when I make you better, that good will definitely get back to me. That’s why I always try new things.
Government’s intervention in SMEs
I feel government needs to be close to the people to know what their needs are. At times, you don’t follow status quo. Maybe we need to empower the local government. It would be better. Some of these issues should be carried out by the local government and when it comes to funding, we can now rely on the federal government. I am yet to see one Agric extension officer that checks on farmers to see that they are doing things riight. It has been that crazy. Let’s move close to the people and it would impact the people better. Committing it to the hands of local governments will make it more competitive because every chairman of council would want to do better for the people just to make a statement. Government must move closer to the people to know their real needs. An average plantain chips seller should know what he needs to do to be successful in business. You cannot also expect all of us to have same criteria before we are fully identified by government. Government should also look at standards, and also the criteria should not be made too stiff.
