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Bakers call for waivers on enzymes critical for cassava bread production

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.”

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