Nigerian corporate bakers, who have
commenced production of cassava bread, have called on the federal
government to give them import duty waiver on enzymes (magic solutions)
in high quality cassava flour recipes, which they claim are imported at
high costs, brought about by high freighting costs, BusinessDay can
reveal.
Without these enzymes, cassava bread
manufacturing will fail since high quality cassava flour does not
contain gluten, a vital component for bread baking. These enzymes are
not available in Nigeria.
The CEOs of UTC Nigeria Plc, Folusho
Olaniyan and Food Concepts, Deji Akinyanju, bakers of UTC Bread and
Butterfield Bread, revealed this fact at the launch of the
commerciacialised high quality cassava-based bread held at the
Presidential Villa, Abuja on Saturday.
According to Olaniyan: “Our magic
solutions (enzymes) in the high quality cassava flour recipes, have come
to us at relatively high costs due to high freighting costs. They are a
necessity for success because of the absence of gluten in high quality
cassava flour. We solicit for the Federal Government’s support in
getting waivers on the import duty for bakery equipment and enzymes
pending the time enzymes can be locally manufactured. We also appeal to
the Federal Government to support us with a marketing campaign which we,
the stakeholders, will actively participate in formulating in order to
achieve maximum results.”
Akinyanju said, “We require a waiver on
duty for both the equipment and enzymes that we need to import from
abroad. With minimal grants to fund additional equipment we will be able
to automate our processes which will increase our efficiencies and
capacity to deliver to feeding programmes nation wide.”
