Available natural resources led me into wine production – Okpala - See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/07/available-natural-resources-led-me-into-wine-production-okpala/#sthash.syjj3Cq2.dpuf

M r. Anthony Okpala is the Managing Director/ Chief Executive Officer of Carlsbury Winery Limited, makers of Cartier wines. Okpala has a first degree in Food Technology and a master’s in Business Management from Texas A & M University, USA.

Okpala

He also has an associate degree in Accounting and had worked in Budweiser Brewery  Company in the US before relocating to Nigeria in 1997. He went into food and beverages production.  In this chat with Financial Vanguard, he speaks on this motivation, challenges and appeals to government to do more to help local producers by enforcing existing laws.

Excerpts:

Upon his return to Nigeria, Okpala worked briefly with a production company before going into sachet water production and in the process, saw the need for wine.

“I found two of our local raw materials very viable for alcoholic and non-alcoholic wine production. The first was pineapple which is very good for both alcoholic and non-alcoholic wine production. The other amazing one is over-ripe pawpaw which can be used to produce very rich alcoholic wine.”

Why pineapple?

“I use pineapple because it is fresher and healthier than concentrates. Some of these concentrates expire before they get into Nigeria and many of them are substandard in terms of quality. We have been involved in production since 2006 and Cartier has been accepted in the market.

Motivation:

“What made me go into wine production is the passion I have for production of beverages using local raw materials. What we have locally motivated me. I felt that since we have all these, why do we go abroad to import all sorts of wines, juices and concentrates? We are blessed with varieties of fruits and most of our fruits are not chemicalised or genetically modified, they are natural and that was the more reason I saw it as an interesting thing to venture into. Also, the fruits are in abundance. We have different species of pineapple in Nigeria. The type we have in Badagry is different from the ones from Edo/Delta and Ibadan,” he said.

Challenges:

“First is power and second is finance. The system does not encourage people to go into this type of business. Everybody wants imported wines so the challenge is government allowing these  items into Nigeria, it is not encouraging us. As producers, we create jobs but if these items are imported, we create jobs for other countries. So banning the importation of these products is a means of creating employment for Nigerians. Although non-alcoholic drinks are banned, yet, they flood our markets; that is a big challenge.”

Okpala noted that although imported wines are not cheaper and sometimes of less quality, but due to Nigerians’ crave for imported items, they still go for them.

“They are not cheaper but just because of our mentality that foreign products are better than local products, we prefer imported items.”

Commending NAFDAC, he said: “They are very strict on quality. Before you can get NAFDAC number, they have to make sure the product  complies with quality standards and safe for human consumption.

“Some of the imported products are not certified by NAFDAC and we may never  know where they are made and they pass through our ports, so I am appealing to government to look into it and see that they enforce the law on contrabands.

“Insurgency has been a problem too. There was a time our biggest market was Yola and as far as Cameroun but the insurgency has affected us greatly.”

Local production is expensive:

Although producing locally is expensive because of power and finance, but some government agencies set up to assist entrepreneurs like National Board for Technology Incubation under  the Federal Ministry of Science & Technology, have been up and doing. They are assisting people with innovative ideas across the country but one of the areas hindering them is finance.

According to them, some entrepreneurs collected loan from Bank of Industry and are yet to complete the payment but that has not stopped them from helping others although it is affecting new entrants. If we have enough finances, we can outrun South Africa in fruit juice and wine production.   We have the technical know-how and raw materials. We go as far as using natural sweeteners like sugar from fruits instead of industrial sugar. These are the innovative ideas we want government to help us actualise by stopping importation of wines without due process.”

Okpala who said the company has six staff and many marketers, noted that the industry is viable going by the rate of importation. “Nigeria has become a dumping ground where people dump whatever they produce. “I want Nigerians to look inwards and appreciate what we have.”

Danger of importation:

“Another danger of importing unapproved food items is that you do not know exactly where they are coming from so if anything happens, there will be no trace of the producer just like what is happening in Niger-Delta with ogogoro. They have been drinking ogogoro for centuries but now, the imported one is destroying us. People decided to bring in methanol which is deadly. It kills within hours of ingestion so that is the more reason why  government should step up to regulate these activities.”

- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/07/available-natural-resources-led-me-into-wine-production-okpala/#sthash.syjj3Cq2.dpuf