A construction engineer, Engr. Aneru Izuagbe, Managing Director of Amineru Enterprises Limited and his wife Amina are farmers who are calling for support and collaboration to boost their small scale food packaging business.

The whole idea of the business started when Amina, a Secretarial administration graduate who has been involved in several kinds of businesses before she got married to Aneru discussed with her husband sometime around 2012 that she would stop eating pounded yam and instead take wheat.

That was how she started buying wheat and milling the delicacy to eat and as time goes by she was able to convince the husband to start taking wheat as a meal as well. It was at this point she was able to mill enough wheat and people bought from her.

When they started with just wheat, the response was so impressive and they saw it as a lucrative business. They then applied to NAFDAC for registration for the production of wheat after the inspection of the premises which was one of their buildings.

It was the NAFDAC officials who advised on the need to use the back flat of the building as a factory. They took the samples to their laboratory at Onitsha, took the test to their headquarters in Lagos and eventually, they were given NAFDAC certification.

It was initially certification for wheat, plantain and then groundnut and pepper soup and they all have the NAFDAC number. They have also gone into garri- cassava farming, with the acquisition of a large farm land from where they get their cassava raw materials. They also have a farm for plantain which they hope to harvest by next year.

Speaking with the NIGERIAN OBSERVER in their factory in Benin City, Engr. Aneru and the wife who is the Chief Executive Officer of the Business said there are great potentials in food consumables because people eat them every day, adding that all they have to ensure is that they have good products and good packaging.

“We have attended various seminars and trainings on packaging and quality control which have assisted us to come out with the packages we are using now. At the same time we are already up grading this to the type that is transparent for people to see the products that are inside.

In the words of Engr. Aneru who is a University of Benin trained Engineer, they have acquired several other certifications such as from the US food and drugs administration. “This is the US version of NAFDAC. Their consultants in Nigeria came to the factory, took samples and looked at our setup and we passed their test and they gave us their certification.

“This means that our products can enter the United States market unhindered and we are also registered with the Nigeria Export Promotion Council which regulates export activities within Nigeria. We are also members of Edo Shippers association where Sir Bibowei Braie is our vice president in matters of shipping, import and export business.

“We are also members of the Nigeria – German chambers of commerce. The Edo Exporters clusters and we are finalizing our registration with Benin Chambers of Commerce and Industry BENCCIMA.

According to him, they are doing all these to create a way for their products to go very wide and create a market, but the challenge he noted has been the productive capacity which is still limited, especially within these last two years with the arrival of COVID-19.

“Our operations were actually hampered. Before now all those containers you see there are always filled up because we stock them during the season. Plantain has gone off season now, maybe in another one or two month’s time they will begin to come

“During that season, we peel, we dry and we stock them in the containers so that we are able to produce all year round. But these last two months production was really low because when plantain came out it became expensive.

“People did not go to the farm enough to be able to have enough and to get it was difficult and for us to produce, we stock it at a high cost. It used to be N600 when we started. Last year it was N1000 and now it is N1, 200 because the packaging cost has increased and the raw materials, costs of fueling, diesel have also increased.

He however, noted that because of the passion for the business and knowing that they will be able to get there with a little encouragement they are very optimistic.

While commending the Vice President of the Shippers Council, Sir B. Braie as one of their major supporter and mentor, he disclosed that he was instrumental for their membership of Edo Shippers Association.

“The Shippers Council were here a couple of weeks ago to find out how we were doing and their coming gave us the encouragement that we really need. We are looking ahead of being like the Dangote’s flour.

“We know our competitors in the market and we try as much as possible to associate with those that will help us to be above board, he added.

The Amineru Enterprises Limited started with a small savings but along the line they have been approaching finance bodies, but because of the interest rates of banks they could not access any facility from them.

The bank of Agriculture and bank of Industry have visited the factory, but their terms are unfriendly. They are also close to the Edo State government, they have attended almost all the trade fairs, Alaghodaro and they are members of Edojobs, an agency of the state government.

They have attended several government sponsored seminars and the first lady of Edo State, Mrs. Betsy Obaseki who is from the Bank of Industry has seen the products in various seminars and she has called the Edo state manager to attend to us.

“They have all been here, but their conditions are still very high, we have tried to hire a consultant, Edijala and Co to help source for funds but at the end of the day the conditions are not favorable.

“Where we had a breakthrough was when NIRSAL micro finance bank was created by the Central bank and a friend of ours who knew about this called us in 2018, and then we were in the village during the Christmas.

“We had to rush back to Benin and we applied for the programme and luckily we got intervention from NIRSAL last year and we were able to purchase this generator, the drier and other cassava equipment.

“The intervention was at five percent interest with four years repayment period and we are servicing it right now. Seventy percent of that intervention was invested on equipment, and thirty percent is given to us to do all other things and it is from there they take their insurance, management fee and what we have we use to run our consumables and raw materials for the season.

“We have the equipment now, but what we actually need now is the support to get the raw materials. Like this packaging cost about N2.5m to get the kind of packaging we want to go into to get ten thousand copies.

“We have been able to do half of that and the printing is ongoing now, but definitely we would need to bring out the balance to be able to take delivery at the middle of August this year. I can guarantee the product because people like it and they are looking forward to have it.

“Like today we are supplying JARRA and Anambra super markets. The market is there. These are how far we have been able to access support from financial institutions and we are looking for other ways that we can get grants, stress free loans at very low interest.

“The market guarantees that we would be able to service such loans because we are a small scale business. But with the loans from Banks with interest rates of about twenty to twenty two percent, there is no way we can meet up. Those kinds of supports are good for big firms or factories that have attained very high status. We are trying to upscale, therefore commercial banks are out of it,” he added.

He further disclosed that the vision of the Business is to make the products available in the next shop, to be available outside the shores of Nigeria and to ensure that if a customer goes to any open market, any major super market they would be able to find the products there.

He assured that the quality will be maintained because every day they are striving to improve on the quality, saying that before they do any batch it is taken to the University of Benin for Laboratory analysis.

“We are working towards having the Lab in-house here in the factory because for every test conducted we pay N20, 000 for every batch. Even at that, we are not sure until it stays on the shelve for a year without losing its quality. For you to be sure it will not lose quality you have to be sure of the moisture content.

“We just do not package blindly like that, because we have a standard which we do not want to come down from. But with N500, 000 we can have our own in- house laboratory.

On the vision of the business, he said: “We are looking at getting to the level where Amineru unripe plantain flour, Amineru garri and Amineru beans flour is available. You can send your son to go to the road side store to get any of our products, that is where we want to be and we are working gradually towards that level.

When at the peak of production, the factory produces about two hundred kg every day and the investment on equipment and the building so far is about seventy million.

But, the support the factory require to expand to get the products to every house hold is about N2.5m for the packaging, and for the purchase of a garri processing equipment that will be used from peeling to finished products in one straight line without going through hard labour will cost about five thousand dollars. Therefore with another N20m the factory will be ready and set to go.”

In his words, though they have not officially received any request for partnership, he however noted that they are open to anyone or organization coming to invest to help expand the business so that they can share the proceeds depending on the investment levels.

He pointed out that this is one of the ways the business can be expanded, it can become a public liability company, not necessarily a family business. But at the moment it is only the family that has invested in the business.

While calling on anyone interested in putting in their share capital to expand the business, Engr. Aneru and the wife enthused, “we are open to such collaboration, either in terms of cash, in terms of equipment or any initiative; we are very open to ensure Amineru brand expands nationally and internationally.”