‘Access to forex, substandard products’ — Cake bakers lament production challenges

Stakeholders in the cake and sugar craft sub-sector have lamented the high cost of raw materials and substandard products as challenging quality products in the country.

They made this known at a stakeholders conference organised by the Nigerian Association of Cake and Sugar Craft Professionals (NACSP), which took place at Ikeja, Lagos, on Tuesday. 

The stakeholders’ conference had in attendance bakers, nutritionists, manufacturers, and officials of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC). 

Tosan Jemide, president of NACSP, said bakers are battling the challenge of sourcing raw materials that are not available in Nigeria, owing to foreign exchange challenges. 

Jemide said the raw materials for baking that are locally sourced are usually mixed with fake and adulterated ones, making it hard for bakers to produce quality products. 

“The major problem that cake bakers face in Nigeria is that a lot of our inputs that are raw materials are imported, so we have to go through the stress of either importing them ourselves or buying from importers in Nigeria,” he said.

“There are also problems associated with the pricing of our products and cost of production because the cost of raw materials keeps skyrocketing. Sourcing quality material is another problem. There are a lot of fake and adulterated raw materials like flour, sugar and others.

“People are importing fake and adulterated raw materials and equipment and this usually affects the quality of our final products.”

Speaking further, the NACSP president urged NAFDAC, SON and other regulators to improve their regulation and monitoring to halt the influx of fake and unadulterated baking raw materials.

He added that the organisation was created as a self-regulatory mechanism for the cake and sugar craft industry to maintain the standards of the industry.

“We are looking at how standards are created and met in the cake industry. There is no form of regulation currently in place because bakers bake what they want to bake from other suppliers. You see a lot of adulterated raw materials. There are no standards,” he said. 

On the foreign exchange crisis, Akan Peter, a baker, narrated how the depreciation of the naira has negatively affected the procurement of raw materials in other countries. 

Peter said the current economic challenges in the country have also caused a sharp decline in the quality of many of the raw materials sourced locally. 

“I want to start from forex. A lot of the raw materials that we use are imported. When you try to import these raw materials, you find out that the price that you use to bring it to the country has doubled in just two months,” he said.

“You are supposed to source foreign currency from banks. They will not easily give it to you. I have my naira in full value, but I cannot get dollars to bring raw materials into the country. You are now forced to get the raw materials locally.”

On her part, Moji Aina, another baker, said the inconsistency of the quality of raw materials procured from Nigerian importers usually ruins the final products of bakers. 

“There is also the issue of the inconsistency of ingredients bought from supplies. Today, you bought something and everything well fine, the next time, you bought that same material, something will happen to your final product,” she said.