Price increase meant to mitigate, not cover costs —NB Plc

THE management of the Nigerian Breweries Plc has explained that the slight review of the prices of the company’s products was meant to mitigate, but not to cover its entire operational costs.

Giving the explanation at the company’s pre-Annual General Meeting (AGM), with the media, in Lagos, recently. the Company Secretary/Legal Adviser, Uaboi Agbebaku, added that the company took this route to avoid adopting a price regime that will alienate the products from its consumers.

He noted that despite the slight upward review of the products, the company still has the lowest-selling products, especially its lager offerings, in the world.

Besides, Agbebaku stated that one of the company’s strategies towards weathering the headwinds in the outgone financial year, was to innovate and come up with smaller packages of some of its products to make them accessible to the obviously, financially stressed consumers.

“One of such innovations was the introduction of our 45cl Heineken Bottle to enable consumers of the lager brand, who may be finding the cost of the 60Cl, outside their reach, to still have access,” he stated.

Also speaking at the event, the company’s Managing Director, Mr Hans Essaadi, identified rising inflationary pressures, further depreciation of the Naira, and fiscal deficits as some of the headwinds businesses, including NB Plc, had to grapple with in 2024 financial year.

According to him, the devaluation of the Naira resulted in hugeFX losses and negative impact on the profitability of the company in the period under review.

He, however, noted that despite the challenging operational environment, the company, through innovation and dedication of its management team and other staff, was able to deliver an outstanding 81% year-on-year growth of N1.1 Trillion Group Revenue.

The NB Plc boss expressed ‹cautious optimism› of an improvement in consumer spending in 2025, due to improved macroeconomics, such a more stable economic environment and the introduction of a restructured minimum wage to boost workers’ earnings, which, he argued, will ultimately lead to discretionary spending.

Akin Adewakun