When the tomato paste business opportunity was reported in the September 10, 2012 edition of SuccessDigest, the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, was quoted as saying that Nigeria is now the number one importer of
tomato paste.
This is in spite of the fact that Nigeria does produce tonnes of tomatoes annually. As a matter of fact, Prof. Mohammed Kaoje Abubakar (Ex-Minister of Science and Technology) was also quoted in that article as saying that though Nigeria produces appreciable quantity of fresh tomatoes, 50% of this produce is lost, due to lack of preservation.
What a waste!
Why allow such large quantity of fresh tomatoes waste, and then turn around to spend over $77 million to import over 65,000 tonnes of tomato paste from China, when we could locally process these tomatoes when fresh into powdery form?
This is a puzzle that any smart entrepreneur that decides to rise up and solve will immensely benefit from. For many reasons, a section of Nigerians will prefer powdered tomatoes to tomato paste, just as some prefer powdered milk to liquid milk. But even after blowing the lid on this hot business opportunity over nine years ago, from all indications, this opportunity has not been fully explored.
If you doubt this, then answer this simple question: In how many markets, shops, supermarkets, kitchens have you ever stumbled on powdered tomato in Nigeria? Very few if any at all! This means that this business opportunity is still yet to be significantly exploited.
If you decide to explore this business opportunity now, you could even go all the way to become the major force in the processing and packaging of powdered tomato not just for the local market, but also for export to other West African countries.
The original story SuccessDigest published on this business opportunity back in 2003 is like a feasibility study. You can download it FREE and use it as a guide if the business opportunity interests you and you would like to give it a shot.
SuccessDigest’s Rating of This Opportunity: (2 Stars)
