The Managing Director, Rite Foods Limited, Seleem Adegunwa, has said people sneered at his decision to put Nigeria’s colours on the beverages produced by his company, saying that he was unwittingly ‘demarketing’ the products.
Adegunwa disclosed this while addressing media practitioners who participated in a two-day Brand Academy hosted by his Ososa, Ogun State-based factory last week.
He said the patriotic zeal in him only earned him scorns even among his workers when Nigerian colours were put on the label of the beverage products.
He said true to prediction, the products did not move in the market initially but he did not because of the setback back off.
Adegunwa said being 100 per cent Nigerian does not connote incompetence in producing sophisticated brands.
“And we have been able to demonstrate that you can be an entirely Nigerian brand, I mean 100 per cent Nigerian, and still be able to produce extremely world-class brands,” he said.
“But it is so gratifying today that even foreign producers and competitors are falling over one another to add Nigerian colours to their products to earn Nigerians’ endorsement.”
Adegunwa said that with the success achieved in the market by the products, Nigerians have started discarding the sentiment that being wholly indigenous does not connote inferiority. It is time for Nigerians to shake off the sentiment that anything produced in Nigeria is considered to be of poor quality and hard sell in the market.
“Our people are used to believe that once something is produced for example in Germany, that product should be strong and of superior quality. They forget that in Nigeria too, it is possible to remain wholly indigenous and produce world class stuff.
“So when we started our beverage and I decided to add Nigerian colours to the label, people thought I wanted to kill the products. It was a tough decision to hold on after the initial setback of about six months that the products refused to move. Even my workers had started wondering why I added the national colours and still stuck to my gun after the products refused to move for months.
“Whatever we are doing in Rite Food is deliberate. When we started to go into food production, nobody gave us any chance. “Don’t forget that some people had been in the sausage market for decades before we decided to make a foray into it. We were not given any chance of success. We had to be fearless, we had to act like a lion when we started.
“Again, some people have this erroneous belief that we are young in the market forgetting that we are about 58 years old. Some people forget that Ess-Ay Holdings is the progenitor of Rite Foods. At a point in this country, it was Ess-Ay Holdings that covered the entire Nigeria as far as photography products were concerned.”
The managing director, who said food business in Nigeria required a resilient spirit, said he coined the slogan, ‘I can, I am’ as a way of motivating himself and his team.
“Just as people tried to dismiss us when we started the sausage business, we were also seen as jokers when we started the beverage production. So many people found it difficult to understand how an upstart could just wake up one day with the idea of starting beverage production in a market that had for decades been dominated by powerful foreign investors. But we were undaunted. Everything we did was deliberate; that is the spirit.
“Today, we are the market leaders in sausage production and in the beverage business, you can see that we have become the leaders to beat.”
The Eagle Online reports that Rite Foods Limited was established in 2007 as a world-class, proudly Nigerian food and beverages manufacturing company, a subsidiary of Ess-Ay Holdings Limited.
Adegunwa, who addressed participants after the facility tour of the factory said the core values of the firm were built on excellence, innovation, integrity and accountability “as highly demonstrated through our valued brands and global best practices. Our company’s commitment to the wellbeing of Nigerians is demonstrated through our unique offerings of quality products in the food and beverage sector of the Nigerian economy.
“Our vision is to be the leader in our sphere of operation which we lead to growth, stability and an enduring legacy, while our mission is to create value for the company by facilitating the attainment of set goals and aspiration through a formidable and exceptional team.
“This has propelled our recorded growth as the fastest growing foods and beverages company in the country.”
Participants were taken through various lines of production of both sausage and beverages where every operation was automated with little or no human interference.
In the food segment, the company produces nutritious brands like Rite Sausage and Bigi soft drink variants introduced into the Nigerian market in 2008 and the Fearless Energy Drinks in 2017.
“Since then, the brands have set the pace for others to follow as the most preferred products by families nationwide as well as addressing the market needs of young pupils in schools.
Also addressing the participants, Brand Manager, Boluwade Adedugbe said, “At Rite Foods, we blaze the trail with our Bigi soft drinks, the family’s favourites in the soft drink segment and we have added other exciting variants now comprising the Bigi Cola, Bigi Orange, Bigi Apple, Bigi Bitter Lemon, Bigi Soda Water, Bigi Lemon and Lime, Bigi Tropical, Bigi Chapman and Bigi Tamarind, Bigi Cherry Cola, Bigi Lemon, Bigi Ginger Ale.
“Our products emerged from the heart of quality innovation and excellence which we will continue to ride on to ensure we give consumers quality products, satisfaction and value for their money.
“Our array of brands are produced with high ethical standards, hygienic conditions and the state-of-the-art facilities, a process the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, described as world-class, during his visit to our factory.”