FOOD processors, under the aegis of Association of Food and Agro-processors (AFAP), have called on the Federal Government to beam its searchlight on the sector, especially the Small and Medium Enterprise (SMEs) to save it from collapse.
National President, Association of Food and Agro-Processors (AFAP), Duro Kuteyi, said governments talk about the big industries but the food processors which are mostly SMEs are being neglected
“If you look at the SMEs sector, you will see that it is more of food processing, one way or the other; someone making plantain chips, potato chips, zobo, beverages and the rest. These are the areas you can see SME and if these areas are neglected, nobody is talking about them, nobody is talking about the raw material availability, how the raw material will get to them, this is not good enough,” he said.
Kuteyi said that at this critical time the food processors need to be taken care of by the government in terms of strategic grain reserve, stressing that most of them that are in the SME sector are using grains, processing grains into food like sorghum, like soya, millet among others.
“Supposing these people are regularly supplied with grains, they will continue with their business life and a lot of people will be kept in their employment.
He said that one of the challenges of these food processors was that they do not have enough raw materials to guarantee all year round processing.
“For example, grains can be preserved in a way that you can draw it till another harvest is ready.
“Government has a lot of grains in their reserve and these grains need to be turned into nutritious food like combining sorghum and soya, maize and soya and the likes that could take care of the daily balance diet.
Speaking further, he said the government was deeply concerned about tomato wastage, and that it was the SMEs that came to the rescue.
“We designed a programme based on the government’s concern on tomato wastage. The project is about training people on how to process tomatoes and we call it proximate processing which is to process close to the farm, so if you process tomatoes close to the farm definitely the loss will be minimal.
Kuteyi, who is also the Chief Executive Officer of Spectra Industries Limited stated that the training exercise were done in Kano, Kaduna, Owerri, Lagos, Abuja and Ibadan to assist the government and the farmers in reducing the wastages.
He added that more than 5000 people had been trained so far on tomato processing; stressing that some of them had started processing in all the states the training took place.
He further said that the association trains people and its members on complete food processing in collaboration with Obafemi Awolowo University, adding that this is another added advantage for being a member of the association.
In terms of maintaining quality he said its members know that export is a serious business.
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