Alomo Bitters brand faces competition, plans to step-up marketing fundamentals

Competition in bitters drink market is intensifying with estimated entry of more big players after Guinness Nigeria launched its bitters brand. Jose Roque, a Phillippino, the country manager for Kasapreko, maker of Alomo Bitters, who claims that Alomo has over 50 percent of the market, says its $50 million planed factory in Nigeria is still on course. Excerpts:

Alomo came into the Nigerian market about three years ago, how has sales been since then?

If you look at Africa, any one who does not see the Nigerian market is really blind. You can’t miss Nigeria; it is a powerhouse in Africa. From the GDP stand point and population, Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa.

What would you estimate as your share of the market?

We haven’t made any measurement, but if you look at some data from independent survey in Nigeria, they measured the gin category, only Alomo is coming up. It is significant. The other entire categories don’t even appear because their numbers are small. Nigerian market for Alomo is almost 50 percent of the entire Kasapreko business in West Africa. If you look at bitters category, the name Alomo is generic for bitters. That is good and bad. The good is that it is top of the mind mention. The problem is that we have not had a sustained marketing push for the product even in Nigeria. Though there is couple of billboards, and BRT advertisement buses. But we have plans to expand the marketing strategies. In Nigeria, with estimates, we have about 60 percent of the market of the bitters.

Why are you shying away from market push of the product, and do you now want to deepen marketing because of competition?

That is not to say that we are not doing anything at all, but we are intensifying the push this year. We are now on radio and print. It is not necessarily because of competition that we want to expand our marketing. We have just opened our warehouse in Lagos, in November last year. Competition has been fierce; we opened the flood gates for the bitters category. There are now more applications for bitters and many of them are copying Alomo.

Why did the market suddenly recognise bitters few years after Alomo’s entry?

What happened was that because of the very limited distribution of the Swedish bitters and the German bitters, there was no much awareness because the visibility was limited. I think the lack of awareness was driven by the perception that the product was coming from the Netherlands for Sweden or Germany, and the consumer felt they could not be affordable. They were imported by some people who were interested in certain number of volumes; the exposure was not wide enough. Consumers need something different. When Alomo came in about four years ago, it was coming on parallel importation through the borders, even before NAFDAC registration.

Some NAFDAC officials said the influx of Alomo before the NAFDAC registration was high that they were seizing a lot of Alomo before the registration. After the registration, lots of applications for distribution took place. That helped us a lot as some of the distributors went straight to Ghana to bring Alomo to Nigeria. Because of the novelty of the product and the word of mouth helped to spread the product.

When was Kasapreko Company established?

The company started in Accra, Ghana, by Kwabena Ajei. It started in his garage 25 years ago. He did not start with Alomo Bitters, he started Alomo 15 years ago. That became a trail blazer in the bitters category. He was able to find a scientific way of proportioning the herbs that were introduced into the bitters.

What is the importance of the herbs in Alomo?

In Ghana, there was the backdoor brewing type of herbs similar to what was done in Nigeria, where the herbs are inserted into drinks. The challenge is that they are not scientifically measured. Herbs are powerful and can produce good beneficial health effect to the body. If the combination is wrong it could have adverse effects. So, he was able to partner with Scientific Plant Medicine in Mapong, which is World Health Organisation affiliate that did the extraction of the herbs. That helped him to make sure that the amount of herbs and the proportion of the herbs are according to what is good for human consumption.

There is a purifying herbs in Alomo, there is anti-malaria ingredients among others. There is also ingredients that will improve the virility of man, which to a large extent, is enticing to some individuals. However, from a food drug stand point, we can’t make certain claim. Alomo is registered as a food because it is an alcoholic drink and therefore we cant make certain claim. But included in the products are herbs that are able to demonstrate these properties.

How do you see yourself as the leading company in that category?

Last year on CNN, they declared that Alomo was one of the top five world emerging brands. Having that on unsolicited fashion, it was driven by the Nigerian market and to a large extent by the Ghanaian community. What we are doing now is to continually support the push and the momentum; it has the fundamentals of a global brand. We are leveraging that to do the right thing of visibility, branding merchandising and a lot right distribution.

Many are seeing the opportunity in the bitters market and competition is getting fierce, how do you feel about it?

The best form of measure of success is innovation. When they keep copying you that mean you are successful. But what you must not to be complacent. We have to continue to be vigilant and innovate. You can continue to ride on your success. If they keep copying you and you don’t do anything, before you realise it, your market has been eroded. We have to step on our fundamentals, the more players in the market place will make you to step up and make sure you are ahead of competition.

One of the challenges that put consumers of Alomo off is faking of the product, what are you doing in this regard?

We have some process we are coming out with. It is a challenge that is there and we are closely linking ourselves with the authorities. We have had some raids in Benin in February, Aba. Before they were openly displaying it, and after the raids they are now hiding it. We have closed some offices but we have not prosecuted culprits. There are efforts in this regard. When we do this it will be unprofitable for them to engage in faking.

Kasapreko said it planned to establish a $50 million company in Nigeria, how far with that plan?

The statement was alluding to the $30 million line that was put up in Ghana. It was actually put up. We did not say we are not establishing, we are still considering establishing a plant here. But the first step is really the warehouse. We have established the warehouse so that we can build on distribution up to certain level when we have achieved a certain scale, then the next is to establish a manufacturing plant here. But at the moment, we have a big, mega production plant in Ghana that can supply West Africa. From the economic scale standpoint, we need to get to a level where we need to run that line to a certain degree. We must make sure that our volume here is nearing the capacity of the line in Nigeria.