Indications have emerged that Dangote Tomato Processing Company has concluded plans to resume production on Sunday, March 19.
Managing Director of the company Alhaji Abdulkarim Kaita, on Monday said the factory, located in Kadawa, Kano State, was expecting a team of engineers from Italy on Friday as part of finishing preparation to resume production.
Kaita noted that “As part of preparations to resume production on Sunday, we are expecting a team of engineers from Italy on Friday”.
“The machines are under guarantee and we are not able to operate last year due to the scarcity of fresh tomato in Kano and other neighbouring states,” he said.
Kaita said the engineers would assess the quality parameters as well as the installed capacity of the machines before they could finally hand them over to the company, revealing that the company had decided to resume production following the availability of the commodity and the recent crash of its prices in the market.
“The price of the commodity has come down as a big basket, which was selling at N4,000, now cost between N1,200 and N1,400,” Kaita said.
Business Hilights can recall that the company had last year stopped production due to the scarcity of fresh tomato as a result of pest that ravaged farms in Kano and other tomato-producing states.
But as part of measures to maintain sustainable supply of the commodity, the company recently signed an agreement with farmers in Gombe and Sokoto State on how to boost production of tomato for use in the factory.
