Former NAFDAC Director Urges Premium Breadmakers to Embrace Regulatory Compliance for Future Opportunities
Rev. William Effiok, former Director of Food Registration and Regulatory Affairs at NAFDAC, advises members of the Premium Breadmakers Association of Nigeria to adhere to regulatory standards for enhanced business prospects in 2024.
Speaking at the association’s 2023 Day Out in Lagos, Effiok emphasized the importance of meeting regulatory requirements to ensure quality and the production of healthy, safe products. The event aimed to address challenges in the baking industry, particularly amid economic downturns in Nigeria’s manufacturing sector.
Also speaking, a Director of Food Safety and Applied Nutrition of NAFDAC, Mrs. Eva Edwards, reiterated the agency’s commitment to ensuring the standards and quality of its regulated products.
She noted that the business environment is experiencing some challenges, including fuel subsidy removal, exchange rates, and infrastructure, among others, threatening business sustainability.
“Producers of NAFDAC-regulated products must understand that safety, standards, and quality are not negotiable, despite all the challenges confronting them,” she said.
Edwards said that NAFDAC, under the leadership of the incumbent Director General, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, was concerned with the challenges posed by the factors listed above and had introduced some intervention measures to ease the burden on the stakeholders.
Earlier, in his opening remarks, PBAN President, Engr. Emmanuel Onuorah said the challenges of being a breadmaker in Nigeria are quite enormous and very tasking with constant drops in their capacity and diminishing margins.
Onuorah noted that the cost far outstrips revenue, thereby leading to most of the bread producers running at a loss or barely surviving.
“We more often than not inadvertently keep recapitalizing our businesses to remain afloat, this is for those that have the capital outlay, while most bakeries that cannot inject fresh funds into their businesses shut down.
“The main reason for our gathering here today is to interrogate and find solutions to our challenges as an industry from the regulators and other technical and commercial perspectives,” he said.
