In view of reducing capital flights and increasing local content in production, the Nigerian Breweries (NB) Plc, has attained 99 per cent in sourcing packaging materials locally.
Corporate Communications and Brand Public Relations Manager of the company, Mr. Patrick Olowookere, in an interview at the Ibadan brewing plant said the percentage covered locally manufactured cans, crown corks, crates, bottles and labels among others, which were all part of strategic partnerships with local manufacturers.
According to him, “Before now, we used to source our canning materials from Europe and as time went by, we realised that it was not sustainable”.
“We decided to look at backward integration which is the only way to promote sustainability and local content development.
Continuing, he said “NB then partnered with a company called GZ International for the production of cans for its canning lines, while other packaging materials are also sourced locally at a cheaper cost”.
“Now, we are at 99 per cent sourcing our packaging materials from local manufacturers with an assurance from NB that it will buy the materials they produce,’’ he said.
The development however revealed that the company was more proactive in developing agricultural value chains like in the development of sorghum and food grade starch among others.
Business Hilights gathered that Nigerian Breweries (NB) Plc had built the biggest sorghum malting plant in Africa and, now produces about 2.6 million hectolitre of beer annually, and one hectolitre is 100 litres.
