BUA Chairman Speaks On The Unseen Forces Inflating Food Prices In Nigeria

The Chairman of BUA Foods Plc, Abdul Samad Rabiu, said on Thursday that the rising cost of food in Nigeria is due to the actions of greedy distributors and producers.

He made this statement during the company’s 7th annual general meeting held in Abuja.

Rabiu praised President Bola Tinubu for providing duty waivers on food imports, which he believes could help ease the situation. He explained that BUA Foods offers some of the most affordable products in the market. However, because there are other companies selling similar items, it’s challenging to keep prices low.

Rabiu shared an example, mentioning that a few months ago, while the price of flour reached N70,000 per bag, BUA maintained its price at N50,000 to encourage competitors to reduce theirs. But instead of adjusting, some companies decided to halt production altogether, creating scarcity and driving prices even higher.

“When we were at N50,000, distributors added N20,000 more and sold it at N70,000 per bag,” Rabiu noted. “At one point, customers were making almost N20 million per truckload of 75 tonnes of flour. While we kept our prices low, other companies were unhappy with us and deliberately stopped producing to create a shortage, which caused prices to keep increasing.”

Seeing this, BUA Foods felt it didn’t make sense to keep selling at N50,000 when the market price was at N70,000. Although BUA’s production is significant, Rabiu acknowledged that there are still two companies larger than theirs. However, he expressed confidence that by next year, BUA Foods would surpass them.

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