At the recent round table meeting organised by the Association of Women in Agro Processing and Packaging (AWAP), experts discussed ways of achieving a greater 2025 in branding and packaging of agro products.
The meeting which held in Lagos under the theme, ‘Round Table Meeting Towards Greater 2025 in Agro Processing, Branding and Packaging, had in attendance processors, women in agro processing, representatives of NAFDAC; SON; Bank of Industry; Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), Nigeria Export Promotion Council; Lagos State Employment Trust Fund among others.
During the meeting, the speakers emphasised the need for processors to package their products properly so as to enable such products to compete favourably with foreign products.
According to them, there would be no need to produce products that cannot be exported or be acceptable in supermarkets due to poor packaging.
President, Association of Women in Agro Processing and Packaging (AWAP), Racheal Eyitayo Ariori regretted that most of the products of women in agro processing are not acceptable in stores adding, “majority of these women, their products are not been accepted by stores, the products cannot be exported because the women do not have access to finance, they are struggling and they are crowing, l feel that there are so much that is available with this current administration.’’
However, she stressed the need for the federal government to support processors so they can acquire packaging machines that would in turn prevent post harvest losses.
Explaining further, she said: ‘there are processors that are already in the business, the government can empower them so they can purchase packaging machines, most of these machines are so expensive, an individual cannot afford it.
In her words : “we all know that packaging machines and materials are very expensive, must of these women do not have it, but if we have a central processing and packaging hubs, where a woman can bring cassava, then she will go out with her packaged garri, tapioca, packaged starch, that will reduce the post harvest losses that we are experiencing in this country, we have a problem of post harvest management and it is affecting our food security as a country because we produce more and we lose more because of the post harvest management, we have no solar panel; no freezers; no cold rooms, that can preserve all these items.
“Take for instance, when you go to the market, you will discover that in every one tone of tomatoes, half a tone will get bad because there are no facilities to preserve them, if we really want to grow and be better, we need to have production and processing hubs where women can preserve their products’’.
This she explained would generate money for employees that would manage that facilities and thereby increase food security.
Also speaking at the gathering, Managing Director De Luxe Flour, Chioma Ononye stressed the need for collaboration among women in agro processing and branding, adding that such partnership would strengthen their capacity as women.
She identified knowledge gap as one of the challenges facing women in agro processing and packaging and opined that such gap can be filled with training.
Driving her point home, she said: “whatever be the knowledge cap can be covered up through training. To make 2025 a great year, we must have a holistic review, to look at what worked in 2024 and what did not work in 2024 for us to be able to make adequate adjustment , and then looking at 2025 we must have a clear picture of the need for a proper branding, the consumers concept about branding is not what the producer has in mind, you must think like the consumer to be able to meet their expectation in packaging, also looking at the trend for packaging , it is not just copying what has been, a lot of attraction and creativity must come in to packaging to make it attractive to consumers.’’
Some of the representatives of the agencies that participated during the meeting commended the organisers of the event, saying such gathering would go a long way to encourage women in agro processing and packaging to attain greater height come 2025 and beyond.
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