Fruits juice production and packaging
The protagonists of agricultural development have argued that an agrarian society like Nigeria can only achieve economic development through development of the agricultural sector in all its ramifications. Agricultural development connotes the ability of the rural sector to be able to feed the teaming population and also grow at a rate faster than population, adds more mouth to feed. Against this background, as we are encouraging production of agricultural crops, one must also simultaneously encourage utilisation of such crops. This is the need for this write up.
Investment justification
Fruits juice production is a viable project as raw materials are readily available in Nigeria. Raw materials for fruits juice are oranges, lime, lemon, grape, paw paw, guava, pineapple and mangoes. These are grown in abundance in Nigeria and they waste away during the production season. There is every assurance that the plant will work round the year as constant supply of raw materials (fruits) is guaranteed.
Nigeria is about the largest market in the black Africa with food supply – demand gap of more than 50 percent. That is, the supply of food products is less than 50 percent of the demand. This leads to importation of food items to complement the present supply level.
With the recent tariff imposed on imported food items including fruit juice, there exists now favorable climate for local producers of fruit juice. Today, such fruits juice, such as “five alive” and “Just juice” are now beyond the reach of average Nigerians, there now exists great opportunity for local producers of juice as locally produced ones can effectively compete well with imported items in terms of price.
The technical feasibility of the project is also not in doubt. This can be buttressed by the fact that the technology behind fruits juice production is simple. The import of this is that acquisition and maintenance of the machineries will be at relative ease. This is an added advantage to this project.
Embarking on this project will curb wastes. This is because ours is a situation characterised by excessive production during season. In which case a lot of fruits do waste away in the season. This project is out to reduce such wastes as anything sort of excess will be processed and package with increased shelf live. It is also a way of making available fruits juice all the year round as the packaged ones will be in the market during the off-season.
There is going to be improvement in the dietary pattern of people because production of fruit juice shall increase the level of consumption of essential minerals and vitamins needed for healthy growth of populace. Physically and mentally alert populace is a pre-requisite to productive populace.
Other social and economic benefits derivable from the project execution are increase in both rural and urban income, increase in employment rate, increase in food product level thereby reducing dependence in importation of food items, reduction is social vices and increase in gross national income. This is poverty alleviation proper!
Production technology/implementation procedure
Fresh fruits are procured from either farms or from suppliers. Procured fruits are sorted out, washed, peeled and fed into the juicer. The juicer extracts the juice. The extracted juice is passed to the centrifugal sieve to sieve the juice. Already sieved juiced is then passed into blender where additives and sweeteners (if necessary) are added. The juice is also allowed to pass through ultra pasteurisation in order to kill the germs before being filled into either bottles or other forms of packaging such as tetra pack. Filled bottles or pouches are later packed into cartons ready to be picked up by distributors.
Procedures for embarking on this project are feasibility studies preparation, procurement of accommodation/site, acquisition and installation of plant and machinery, recruitment of appropriate personnel, procurement of raw materials and commercial production and marketing take-off. Investors can be assisted in the any of the above listed procedures.
Profitability
A daily production of 2,000 litres with a conservative profit margin of N30 per litre, working 250 days year, will give the owners annual income N15 million, which is highly reasonable.
By: OLUMAKINDE ONI