Why we repackaged our products –Yesufu, Cadbury director

Director, Corporate and Government Affairs (West Africa) Cadbury Nigeria Plc, Mr. Bala Yesufu, bares his mind to Akin Adewakun, on a whole range of issues, including why the company re-designed its candy brand, Tom Tom, for the first time in 48 years. Excerpts.

Where will the China/Nigeria Currency swap leave your brands?

I think the beauty about it is that we are into local production. Therefore,  if there is going to be any competition, especially from the foreign brands, as a result of the swap, we are prepared for such competition. One thing I’m sure of is that the government, too, will not close its eyes to all these things; since the policy is not meant to cripple local manufacturers. I also believe the government will also not want to engage in any activity, or come up with any policy that will cripple local industries. That is why I believe that the impact of the currency swap would be a win-win thing for our brands. We are confident and very ready.

Some of your brands are now in satchets, why allow competition to beat you to such innovation?

One thing you must know is that for a company to redesign its packaging or  introduce new products, such decisions are always based on market research. You have to find out what the market, out there, wants. If the research says yes,  a lot of people can not access your brands because of packaging, and you need to now introduce packages that people can then afford, especially the low-income people, then you look for ways to address this. This is  what most companies do, and that is what we have done in this case. You just have to change with the time. It is not about allowing competition to take the initiative. It is about doing  it at a time we knew was ripe for such packaging.

The curiousity here is why did you allow competition to blaze the trail before following?

No, it’s not because competition has done it, we also must do it. You have to do your own research, because you also have your own consumers too.  You can only do that if that  is what your consumers want.

What did you differently  to ensure your brands survived recession?

The fundamental thing that we did during that period, and which I also believe many manufacturers did, was to look at how best to cut cost. We had to really cut cost to increase productivity. Some things that we felt were not necessary had to be left out. We went down to the basics. We even told ourselves, if you had worked from 8am to 6pm, go home,  and we ensured everybody complied. We didn’t want to be forced to get to that level where we would have to reduce headcount.  So we were able to do a lot, through cost cutting, without reducing headcount.

In the past you used to partner with other brands to jointly reward consumers. What has happened to such partnership, in recent times?

It’s still on. We still have one with Dufil Prima Foods, the Indomie promo, where you buy some cartons of Bournvita, and get some cartons of Indomie.  We will remain committed to initiatives that will bring smiles to the consumers. You can trust us on that.

But one would have expected such initiative to more pronounced, now?

Well I can say it has increased. For instance, we were in collaboration with Dano last year, where you buy some quantity of Bournvita, and then we give you some quantity of Dano. It’s still on.

ALSO READ: Nigeria set to adopt African standard on sugar products, sugar

Can we have some insight into how much you have been giving back to your operating environments?

We have a very enduring one that we can tell you right now. It is the piping of water from our factory to our host community in Agidingbi, and it’s 24-7. As we speak now, if you get to Agidingbi, you will see some over-head tanks. So what can be better than giving your host community that kind of facility, so to say, considering the challenge of water in Lagos. There is also the community partnership programme that is about to evolve now. It is a lifestyle programme for children and adults alike. It’s a project by Mondelez International, our parent company. Mondelez has a foundation, which is  partnering with Helen Keller International, an international NGO. We are partnering to carry out this initiative. On the 11th of April, this year, we launched that partnership. We are one of the ten companies in Mondelez family, benefitting from this initiative. It has a value of $50million. The $50million is a multi-year strategy for these ten countries. Nigeria is one of the ten countries. So this money will be shared among those countries for a period of three years. Nigeria will get a fraction of that money, and Helen Keller is the one driving this project. They have the expertise. They’ve been around for over 100 years, and it’s an American company, but they have an office in Nigeria. How it works is that Mondelez International Foundation provided the money and gave it to Helen Keller to execute, because they have the expertise. What we do at Cadbury is to supervise and work closely with them. What we’ve done so far is to train stakeholders that will drive this project. We’ve trained so far 130 people from April 11 till date. Some of them are agricultural science teachers, some of them are nutritionists, while some of them are from the Lagos State civil service, government officials.  We want to teach children between the ages of 6 and 12, the importance of healthy nutrition, as in eating good food, including fruits and vegetables in their diets, as opposed to just taking juice and pastries. Remember there is childhood obesity. Obesity is also in Africa, though it may not be as high as it is in the Western world. You know our problem here,  is more  of malnutrition and  stunted growth. So we want to do like a behavioural change, educating children, both obese and malnourished, using three approaches: good nutrition, physical exercise and gardening. We want to introduce physical exercise as part of the curriculum. We are using nine public schools as pilot phase, for the next three years. The schools will be around Agidingbi, in Ikeja; since charity, they say, begins at home. Those people that we’ve trained, that is the teachers, the nutritionists, the agriculturists, will, in turn, train these students on the importance of nutrition, physical exercise and gardening. We’ll teach them how to plant basic crops like maize, tomatoes and others in their school gardens, and even at home, without having to use big space. You can just plant it inside one plastic bag. The whole idea is to train these children on the importance of good nutrition right from childhood. The whole essence is that if they  are taught  this at this young age, it is very clear that when they grow up, they will imbibe this habit. It is a three-year project and this is the first year. At the end of the day, Mondelez International may decide to expand it. This is just like a pilot phase.

So you are starting off like training the trainers? Are you paying the teachers, nutritionists? How do you monitor their delivery?

Yes. They are being paid. In the area of monitoring, there is Helen Keller that works with them. What  we’ve even done is to create an office base in Cadbury.

After three years, what would happen?

There would be an evaluation on the success of the programme, the challenges and future prospects. There are parameters they will use to measure the success of the programme. If they are satisfied with the outcome, they can decide to expand. In fact, at the maiden meeting on April 11, the representative of the Lagos State government said from what she had seen so far, that the programme looks very laudable, that at the end of the first year, if they actually meet their target, the state government should be able to key into it.

What role is your company playing in the forthcoming Russia 2018?

Our Tom Tom is the official candy of the Super Eagles. This is the first time since 1970 that we launched this brand, that we changed our packaging to reflect the Super Eagles colour. We are doing this out of our patriotism to Nigeria and the Super Eagles. This is the first time that we’ll be tweaking our logo, just for the Super Eagles, just for Nigeria.