- Dangote Pasta to grow by 120% next year
Dangote Flour Mills Plc, DFM, has explained reasons behind its Pasta brand non-availability in the market. The reason according to the Group Chief Executive of the company, Thabo Mabe, is that product is bought off-shelf before reaching the market place.
Mabe, who stated this at the 2016 Annual General Meeting, said, “Prior to our pasta reaching the right stores, they are sold off from the trucks, and that is a big challenge we have.”
He said, “Looking at our top line growth on volume; the pasta is sitting on about 65% growth volume. It is sustainable and will be sitting on about 120% in the nearest future.”
On what the company is doing to ensure the brand despite its commanding market leadership but also maintain sizeable present in the market place, Mabe enthused, “We have increased our capacity to meet additional demands. The more we reformulate and improve our product, the more we stimulate the demand and of course, get hold of the market,” he said.
The CEO pointed out that, Dangote is not afraid of competition, but said, the company is prepared to maintain it market dominance.
“We are not afraid of competition, we are growing at 120%,” saying, “you can verify from the stock market and see who is growing at that rate.”
“I focus internally, I don’t focus on competition. I do what the consumers and customers need, I don’t segregate,” he stated.
Continuing he stated: “The secret is focusing relentlessly on what you need to do for the consumer and customer, the secret is about improving your core product in terms of quality. In my view the product is the hero in everything. If you are not delivery product at the right time, the right quality, the right services to consumers and customers will have to go to somewhere else.
“What we do is what is right for the customer. The consumer is under huge financial pressure. What we do today is what is right for the customer. The consumer is under huge financial pressure. We have imported rice in the market today which is more expensive and unfortunately our consumers are being ripped off, compare the price of rice to Pasta, compare the ingredients in rice. I think that is one thing we have to consolidate on, pasta today is healthier and cheaper than rice.”
Buttressing Mabe’s point, the Chairman of the company, Asue Ighodalo, said that its Pasta division sales volume increased by 41.7 percent, while its revenue rose by 85.5 percent.
He went on to say that the division’s resultant Gross Profit was N2.4 billion, while its profit after tax, PBT, and tax was N367million.
In 2015, the Chairman said comparative performance was N258million Gross profit and a loss before interest and tax of N2.1billion, respectively.
