Despite efforts to plug huge tomato deficit in Africa’s largest economy Nigeria, Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, still can not get enough tomatoes for Africa’s largest tomato processing plant six years later.
The 1,200 ton a day processing plant operates at just 20 percent of its original capacity because farmers contracted doesn’t have enough tomatoes to supply the factory due to flooding and other factors.
Launched in March 2016, the tomato processing plant has been shut three times because of supply-related issues in spite of the huge demand for the product and the fact that Nigeria still relies on imports to plug her large tomato paste deficit.
The plant was established to cut 300,000 tons of tomato-paste import from China annually by taking advantage of about 900,000 tons of tomatoes lost after harvest every year due to lack of storage and processing facilities.
However, facts available have shown that was not the case as farmers have not been able to supply the plant enough tomatoes to operate even at 30 percent of its original capacity.
“We haven’t been able to process enough quantity of tomato to make our operations successful,” said Abdulkarim Kaita, managing director of the Dangote Tomato Processing Plant. “At the moment, we are counting losses.”
Presently, the Dangote Tomato processing plant is presently processing around 300 metric tons a day, the highest capacity it has achieved since 2016, but not enough to keep the plant operational given that it requires the same power and cost to run at full capacity.
Despite the deficit in raw material, the plant can not import tomatoes due to Federal Government restrictions that barred the importation of tomatoes along with other 50 products to stimulate local production and ease pressure on Nigeria’s foreign reserves.