Flour Mills Logo
Eromosele Abiodun
In a bid to meet the growing demand for its products and enhance shareholders value, Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc, has invested $65 million (N10.4 billion) on its expansion drive.
Chairman of the company, Mr. George Coumantaros, made this known during the inauguration of its ultra-modern milling complex, named ‘West Mills’ in Lagos.
He said the company commenced an ambitious programme to rehabilitate, upgrade and replace all milling units with high-performing, state-of-the-art machinery and equipment 10 years ago.
He further stated that, the initiative was primarily driven by the need to aximize efficiency of the company’s milling operations, enhance flour quality, respond to the dynamics of the flour market and surpass customers’ expectations.
The company, he said, commenced the building of ‘West Mills’, to meet the needs of the projected growth in demand for its key products and, in particular, to have enough resources and milling capacity to enable it cope with the semolina requirements of its new pasta factory under construction in Agbara.
“To successfully fund the project, the company had to look beyond short term borrowings. A sum of N6 billion out of N37.5 billion raised from the capital market in December, 2010 from the first tranche of FMN’s Corporate Bond proceeds was committed to the ‘West Mills’ project, “he said.
He said the state-of-the-art milling facility would accommodate the company’s projected sales growth for the next five years and allow it to mill and mix a wide range of flours to a high level of efficiency.
He declared that the “West Mill” addition would consolidate the position of Apapa milling site as the largest in Africa and thesecond largest single flour milling site in the world.
Coumantaros disclosed that the new milling complex had been designed and equipped with machinery to blend High Quality Cassava Flour (HQCF) into wheat flour to a higher level than existing mills in order to accommodate the needs of the Cassava Inclusion Policy support of Government’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda.
In order to provide excellent working conditions for staff, ensure minimum impact on the environment and minimize our ‘carbon footprint’, West Mills has been designed to be environmentally friendly.