Belfoods, an indigenous player in the Agro-Food industry, has tasked government on sensitisation of the public on food hygiene, as it established its foothold in the Nigerian market.
The firm observed that a lot was wrong with how and what Nigerians consume, adding that much needed to be done in creating awareness on food safety across all stages, including food processing, storage, distribution, transportation and preparations.
The promoter of the brand, Rekhia Abu stated that this was important to arrest the scourge of food borne diseases and death arising from food intake ,as already 200,000 people were said to die annually from food poison in Nigeria, basically as a result of contaminated foods through improper processing, preservation and service.
Abu disclosed further that the company saw this gap, hence its entrance into the space to address key industry issue.
She said: “Belfood presently boasts of different range including garri, plantain flour, yam flour, poundo yam, odourless fufu, noravita, cassa flour, corn meal, beans flour and cassava grits.
“As a safety conscious organisation, we are committed to healthy and all natural foods produced under strict hygenic conditions.
We have set up a top class processing facility for the processing of our raw materials and presently, we have farms of over 3500acres , from where we cultivate plants like- cassava, plantain, maize , cashew, soya beans and pepper.
“We know the hazards that come with additives and preservatives and so, we make bold to say that our products are without additives and preservative. We have been able to differentiate our brand in the market by carefully keeping to standards in all that we do.
Five of our products have NAFDAC certifications already while others are still undergoing processing”.
She also urged government to explore technology in improving the quality of agricultural outputs and make it cheaper to access.
