NIGERIA – BUA Group, one of Nigeria’s leading manufacturing conglomerates, has restructured its business and consolidated its food operations under a single entity known as BUA Foods.
The food businesses merged into the newly formed arm include BUA Sugar Refinery Limited, BUA Oil Mills Limited, IRS Flour, IRS Pasta and BUA Rice Limited.
According to the company, the move was necessary to maintain its market leadership in the agribusiness and food processing sector, as well as take advantage of the growth opportunities in the economy and the export prospect presented by the African Continental Free Trade Area.
“We have perhaps the largest food business in Nigeria and the West African sub-region.
“To realise our full potential as a business as we drive the food security needs of the country, we have consolidated our food businesses under a single entity to be known as BUA Foods.
“The restructuring will enable us to be nimbler and more responsive to the food needs of the population as we continue to build a sustainable business,” said Chairman, BUA Group, Abdulsamad Rabiu.
The tycoon also confirmed that the newly birthed company has commenced the process of listing on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX).
“Nigerian investors would be given an opportunity to invest in the Company for continuous growth. We will list the company soon and Nigerians will have the opportunity to contribute their resources to consolidate its leading position in the food industry,” he stated.
BUA Group heavily invests in Food Industry
BUA Group has invested massively in the food sector over the years and currently boasts of eight ultra-modern factories in Nigeria undertaking sugar, flour, pasta products, edible oils, and rice processing.
Under its flour milling operations, the company recently entered into an agreement with Milleral, a Turkish manufacturer and installer of milling equipment, to build a new flour milling plant with a total milling capacity of 2,400 tons per day.
The plant will bring BUA’s total installed flour milling capacity to 4,000 tons per day. It currently operates an installed flour milling capacity of 1,600 tons per day.
The deal was closely followed by an agreement with Italian maker of pasta production equipment, FAVA spa to install a new pasta processing plant.
The new plant will have a total processing capacity of 720 tons per day of pasta across 5 lines, complementing the food processor’s already existing 720 tons/day pasta processing plant in Port Harcourt, bringing its total installed pasta processing capacity to 1,440 tons per day across 10 lines.
BUA Group has also been on the lead supporting Nigeria’s backward integration program, expanding its sugar-refining capacity from 1.5 million to 1.7 million metric tonnes through its vertically integrated sugar facility in Lafiagi in Kwara State, Nigeria.
To spearhead the project, the company recently received US$200 million corporate facility from Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), Africa’s leading infrastructure solutions provider.
LASUCO, a first of its kind in Nigeria, is an integrated milling factory that will comprise of a 20,000 hectares plantation, 2,200,000 tons sugar milling plant and a 200,000 tons per annum sugar refinery that will process and refine white sugar.
The facility will also have an ethanol plant that should produce 25 million litres of ethanol annually and a 35-megawatt power plant that will produce renewable energy from bagasse – sugarcane residue.
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