FOOD PRICE SURGE LINKED TO INEFFICIENCY RATHER THAN SCARCITY — ABUNU
Read Time:3 Minute, 58 Second
By: Fasasi Hammad
Amid soaring food prices and growing concerns over supply-chain inefficiencies, Nigeria’s food inflation is putting increasing pressure on households and businesses. In this interview with the media, Kofi Abunu, Managing Director of Food Concepts Limited, explains why post-harvest losses and inadequate infrastructure, rather than scarcity, are the main drivers of the crisis.
Food inflation in Nigeria is influenced by multiple factors, but post-harvest losses play a significant and often overlooked role. A large portion of locally produced food—including poultry, grains, vegetables, and fresh produce—is lost between farm and market due to poor storage, inefficient logistics, and limited processing capacity. These losses reduce effective supply and push prices higher, independent of currency fluctuations or global shocks.
For the Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) industry, this directly impacts input costs, menu pricing, and supply consistency. By minimizing waste along the value chain, we not only stabilize costs for our brands but also contribute to a more resilient food system. Addressing post-harvest losses at scale could ease food inflation and support sustainable growth in both Nigeria’s QSR sector and the broader food industry.
Food inflation is largely an efficiency problem. For QSR businesses, unreliable power increases operating costs through generator use and heightens the risk of food spoilage. Transportation delays disrupt just-in-time supply chains, while insufficient storage limits consistency and scale. These inefficiencies squeeze margins and force higher consumer prices.
Despite these challenges, companies like ours are investing in alternative power, local sourcing, improved cold-chain systems, and operational efficiencies. By building resilience, we can control costs, maintain quality, and continue expanding in a market with strong long-term growth
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The fastest impact comes from modular cold-chain infrastructure at the aggregation level. Cold rooms near farms, paired with grading and aggregation hubs, immediately reduce post-harvest losses for perishables.
Embedded power is critical—cold assets fail without reliable electricity. Finally, dedicated short-haul logistics fleets, including refrigerated or insulated vehicles, ensure fast transport from farms to urban markets.
In short: invest where losses occur—farm-gate cooling, aggregation, reliable power, and rapid distribution. Targeted investments like these yield faster results than large, centralized facilities.
It’s a combination of weak logistics, inconsistent quality, and trust gaps between farmers and large buyers. Poor storage and transport make local supply less reliable. Large buyers need consistent quality, and when local sources fall short, imports fill the gap. Strengthening infrastructure, training farmers, and building strong partnerships can reduce imports, boost local value chains, and support sustainable sector growth.
The breakdown is mainly post-harvest. Without cold-chain infrastructure, proper storage, and fast logistics, perishable crops spoil before reaching the market. At the same time, buyers require year-round quality, which imports currently guarantee. Bridging this gap requires investment in post-harvest handling, aggregation, and market linkages—not just increased farming.
We deliberately built systems suited to Nigeria. We invested in local supplier development, particularly with poultry farmers, to meet QSR-grade standards. Strong internal quality control, forecasting, and inventory management minimize waste. Localized logistics, multiple sourcing options, and buffer strategies mitigate infrastructure and currency risks. This systems-led, partnership-driven approach enables a nearly fully local supply chain despite the country’s challenges.
The private sector can quickly invest in refrigerated transport, temperature-controlled storage, and food processing where demand is clear. At Food Concepts, we have cold rooms, in-house logistics, and supplier partnerships ensuring quality from farm to restaurant.
However, systemic constraints like unreliable power, poor rural roads, and fragmented regulation require government intervention. Public-private partnerships can unlock shared infrastructure, such as cold hubs near agricultural clusters, while allowing private operators to manage them efficiently. Effective cold-chain systems reduce waste, stabilize costs, improve food safety, and support national expansion.
Nigeria has a larger market but more operational challenges. Cold storage is limited relative to scale, energy is unreliable, and logistics are fragmented. Ghana, while smaller, benefits from stable power, shorter routes, and predictable logistics, making cold-chain management easier. In Nigeria, achieving similar service levels requires more redundancy and higher costs.
Clear incentives for private cold-chain investment—import-duty waivers, tax credits for cold rooms and reefer trucks, and faster approvals—would have the greatest impact. Lowering deployment costs would attract private capital, reducing post-harvest losses for perishables within 2–3 years.
It is largely an infrastructure and execution problem, not an unsolvable structural crisis. Inefficiencies in storage, transportation, and aggregation add avoidable costs. Fixing these gaps would stabilize prices, enable reliable local sourcing, and allow the food industry to grow sustainably. With the right investments, food inflation is both manageable and reversible.
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