Some fruit juice producers in Ghana have lamented that their products are rejected by some super markets and other big shops\u00a0in the country.<\/p>\n
Although they failed to list names of some of the super markets complicit in the matter, they said such shops prefer to \u00a0stock their shops with imported European products.<\/p>\n
This comes on the back of a report by the Goldstreet Business<\/strong><\/a><\/span> newspaper that Ghana imports about US$150 million worth of fruit juice each year, while fruit juice processing factories in the country are said to be collapsing.<\/p>\n [contextly_sidebar id=”OoFswvZ5og8A5zv9lk7PpAqQTT8cUHdV”]The report indicated that, only US$ 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.<\/p>\n Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat the government can do to help us is to sensitize the citizens about buying made in Ghana products. That\u2019s the first step. There\u2019s been so much products from the European Union in the market that nobody wants to even taste made in Ghana goods anymore.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t blame them because the big shops and big super markets these days don\u2019t 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\u2019t see the point in buying products made in Ghana.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know whether they don\u2019t 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\u2019t know whether there should be a task-force to check that,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n He wants\u00a0government to stop super markets from importing products such as sugar, fruit juice, toothpick among others that could be produced by Ghanaians locally.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026If 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,\u201d the fruit processor added.<\/p>\n Fruit processing industries to collapse if\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n 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<\/p>\n Speaking on the\u00a0Citi Breakfast Show<\/strong>, Alistair Djimatey said, \u201cwe have the capacity to produce enough for the entire country but the fact is that we don\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt is very true that some might collapse because what is the essence of the factory when you don\u2019t 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,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana
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