Although they failed to list names of some of the super markets complicit in the matter, they said such shops prefer to  stock their shops with imported European products.

This comes on the back of a report by the Goldstreet Business newspaper that Ghana imports about US$150 million worth of fruit juice each year, while fruit juice processing factories in the country are said to be collapsing.

[contextly_sidebar id=”OoFswvZ5og8A5zv9lk7PpAqQTT8cUHdV”]The report indicated that, only US$ 40 million worth of juice representing 28 percent of total domestic demand, is produced in the country, while some local producing factories including Coastal Groove in the Central Region, Coco Bean also in the Central Region, Sunripe in the Eastern Region, Premium Kingdom in the Volta Region, Pinora, Blue Skies and Fruity Land, are all said to be operating under 10 percent capacity.

Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Monday, the furit processor, who wished to remain anonymous, said government must form a task-force to ensure that super markets stock their shops with a percentage of Ghanaian products.

“What the government can do to help us is to sensitize the citizens about buying made in Ghana products. That’s the first step. There’s been so much products from the European Union in the market that nobody wants to even taste made in Ghana goods anymore.  And I don’t blame them because the big shops and big super markets these days don’t want to take the made in Ghana products anymore. Most of them want to buy the products from their countries so that they can send the money back to wherever they came from. So they don’t see the point in buying products made in Ghana.”

“I don’t know whether they don’t want to support our industries, but I think that is what government needs to check. I think government can ensure that most of the shops and super markets should take a certain percentage of products made from Ghana. I don’t know whether there should be a task-force to check that,” he added.

He wants government to stop super markets from importing products such as sugar, fruit juice, toothpick among others that could be produced by Ghanaians locally.

“…If you go to some super markets in Ghana, you will find out that most of the products they sell are not even made in Ghana. Some of them we can make them right here in Ghana when it comes to the sugar, fruit juices, toothpick and common things that we can do in the country, you find that they are all imported which is very bad for the economy and job creation. They prefer to buy the products coming from Europe because they think it has more quality but that is wrong. Because the same machine they are using there are the same ones we use here. So we have to change that mentality and the shop owners have to be ready to receive our products when we bring it to them,” the fruit processor added.

Fruit processing industries to collapse if…

In a related development, the Director of Corporate Affairs at Fruit Processing Company, Blue Skies, Alistair Djimatey, has warned that several local fruit processing companies risk collapse due to inadequate raw material, if no conscious effort is made by government to rescue the situation

Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show, Alistair Djimatey said, “we have the capacity to produce enough for the entire country but the fact is that we don’t have the raw material to process and there are several factors that are militating against the production of these raw material. If you look at pineapple for instance, we used to have about 36 farms in this country but currently we have just about six farms. And several government policies and land tenure system challenges have contributed to the collapse of some of these businesses.”

“It is very true that some might collapse because what is the essence of the factory when you don’t have raw material to collapse. The challenge has to do with availability of raw material. I can tell you, if nothing is done to improve pineapple production to ensure that we get the right quality and yield from our mongo and even other fruits that we have in this country most of these businesses are in danger of collapsing,” he added.

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By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin

The post Super markets reject made-in-Ghana goods – Fruit processer appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Only US$ 40 million worth of juice representing 28 percent of total domestic demand is produced in the country.

99 percent of these major factories including Coastal Groove in the Central Region, Coco Bean also in the Central Region, Sunripe in the Eastern Region, Premium Kingdom in the Volta Region, Pinora, Blue Skies and Fruity Land are all said to be operating under 10 percent capacity.

[contextly_sidebar id=”qI2CPzYR35ge4jk3HsAShRm51xBvYabz”]The companies are facing serious challenges including the high cost of power, depletion of working capital because of the constant depreciation of the cedi, and insufficient raw material because most of the pineapple farms have wasted away.

A case in point is Sunripe Fruit Juice Company with a US$7 million investment and 80 workers, which was producing 5000 cases of juice per day but now only works for a week and shuts down for three weeks and shuts down for three weeks due to these challenges.

The owner, Ruth Acheampong, who lamented to Goldstreet Business believes if these problems are not addressed, it will be a waste of setting up new factories under the ‘One District One Facotory’ project.

She lamented “we have all these factories, so we have the equipment, but they are operating under 10 percent capacity.”

“These issues have to be resolved, otherwise there is risk that the One District, One factory will go the same way. We import US$15 million worth of fruit juice into the country every year. At the end of the day there are 10 fruit juice factories collapsing, what is the underlying problem. We keep saying that we import tomato paste; six tomato paste factories either have no equipment, or have not been set up or have totally collapsed. And we are still importing tomato paste. We should find out what is wrong with the industries,” she added.

In comparison, Nigeria has actually banned 43 items including fruit juice from everywhere in the world including ECOWAS. Before the ban they were producing only US$2 million liters worth of juice but the country is now producing US$550 million worth of the product.

She added that farmers who claim they have not been able to sell their produce for about four years now come pleading with them to offtake their farm produce at a pittance ; some with farm sizes of about 300 acres.

“If we look critically at the existing factories, within six months, all will be up and running because they have gone through the learning gap, they know where the problems are and how to fix them. The major issue is the cost of power, cost of power is ridiculous and if it is not fixed before we bring in more factories, the same thing is going to happen.”

Ruth Acheampong believes if government emulates some of the drastic measures adopted by countries such as Nigeria and Ivory Coast, the industry can be boosted.

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Source: Goldstreet Business

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