Saturday Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.net
43
July 27, 2013
Ramadann does not affect ct sausage roll sales Mr. Tony Abor, Regional Sales Manager (Lagos and South-West) of Rapido Foods Limited, producers of Fibi Beef Sausage Rolls, shares the challenges of marketing sausage rolls in Nigeria with TEMITOPE OGUNBANKE
W
hile some businesses require minimal capital to start, others require huge capital. According to Tony Abor, the Regional Sales Manager (Lagos and South-West) of Rapido Foods Limited, the production of sausage rolls is quite capital intensive. He says, “Sausage roll production is capital intensive and that is why not more than four or five companies are producing sausage rolls effectively in Nigeria today. Another challenge is maintaining customer loyalty in the face of competing brands. Many producers of sausage rolls have packed up their businesses because of their inability to maintain the loyalty of distributors and consumers. Many companies are producing just for the sake of it. People prefer to buy less known and low quality products at low prices. Some of these low quality brands are big in size, and this is an attraction to consumers. They don’t seem to care about quality. Maybe because of the economic situation, people go after what will fill the stomach at the expense of quality. These highquantity, low-quality products are creating lots of competition in the market today. That is why you will see some people coming into the business only to zoom out almost immediately because they cannot withstand the challenges of the business. Despite the challenges, the sausage roll business is not without good sides. Says Abor, “Some products are seasonal. When you
talk about rain, seasons, festival and many others things, they affect some products. But we don’t have that tight seasonal issue with our products, because come rain come sunshine, people relish our products. Besides, we know how we project our products for effective sales.” “For instance, Ramadan does not affect our sales. If you have 10 per cent drop in sales because of Ramadan, I don’t think that is much. It is when you have about 40-50 per cent drop that you will say it really affects business. The way and manner we are distributing our products during Ramadan and other seasons, we still maintain our sales volume.” Another challenge identified by Abor is the various laws put in place by Lagos State, especially the law banning trading on major roads and streets, and the recent law against eating while driving. “We are seriously looking for a way out of the issue of street hawking, looking for other ways of marketing our products apart from hawking on the streets. We have what we call school partnership and we partner with most schools in Lagos to make sure that we promote our products in those schools. Recently, we invited some schools for our customers’ forum. We are still planning other avenues to make sure that we our product are in demand in every area. Although we are working with some hawkers, but with various laws
PEOPLE PREFER TO BUY LESS KNOWN AND LOW QUALITY PRODUCTS AT LOW
PRICES.
SOME OF THESE LOW QUALITY BRANDS ARE BIG IN SIZE, AND THIS IS AN ATTRACTION TO CONSUMERS. THEY DON’T SEEM TO CARE ABOUT QUALITY in Lagos and the presence of Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI) officials in many parts of Lagos State, we are looking beyond street hawking and that is why you don’t see some of our products on the streets. “What we are bringing into Lagos and selling in Lagos is at about 20-30 per cent of the total market share of the sausage roll market. We are doing everything possible to increase our sales. We are doing road shows and doing promos. Presently we are even doing promos with distributors and retailers. We are going to super markets and many places.” The unique selling point and largest consumers of sausage rolls are children, students and youths, and they get special attention from the manufacturers of Fibi Sausage Rolls. According to Abor, “Children are our unique selling point, because most of the things we do as parents and adults are usually induced by children. We believe that if we induce the children,
Abor
they will be able to pass the message across, and from there, we would be able to get the right volume we are looking for.”