Josfyn Uba and Chima Amaechi
After 14 years in the biscuits market, Beloxxi Industries Limited, makers of Beloxxi Cream Crackers, the prime indigenous biscuit brand in the Nigerian market, is set to make a new move.
President/CEO of Beloxxi, Obi Ezeude, said his company was expanding its facilities and, upon completion of the expansion process, the company would be making 80,000 metric tonnes of biscuits a year.
In February 2018, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo inaugurated the second phase of the expansion of Beloxxi in Agbara, Ogun State, and also laid the foundation for the third phase.
And with the completion of the third phase ahead of its scheduled time, Beloxxi’s extra production lines would be deployed into making other biscuits outside the crackers variant.
It was gathered that, with foreign experts assisting the Nigerian experts work out the final modalities, the company would soon announce the names of the new products.
Ezeude said Beloxxi’s cream crackers had done well in the past 14 years. In his words, after sustaining about 74 per cent of the cream crackers market, it was logical that new products were made available for consumers. The firm said the new products would also strive to be the best in the sub-group, like the cream crackers.
Prior to this move, the company had already put in place a mega storage warehouse of modern standard meant to hold about 1.2 million cartons of biscuits at a time.
Daily Sun gathered that the warehouse, built into a mesh of metal racks, would contain about 800,000 cartons of biscuits.The automated shuttle loading system, called warehouse space management system, operates via a robot rack loader or shuttle that automatically handles the loading and offloading of biscuits.
The new warehouse is part of the expansion, which also includes three production lines, bringing it to a total of nine. That makes Beloxxi the largest consumer of the Italian Imaforni automated production lines in Africa.
Ezeude also recalled that the company had started backward integration by setting up some allied manufacturing and logistics business, including the Sagemill Packaging Company and the Theremma Logistics Company Ltd.
The Sagemill factory has been there since late 2018, producing wrappers for the biscuits and corrugated cartons for the packaging of the products, while Theremma handles logistics and distribution.
The company, which has about 3,500 workers, said it might soon spread into some other countries in Africa.
The CEO said his company had, over the years, met its target of providing employment for young Nigerians, giving them the opportunity to mature into young professionals and also find a means of livelihood in their country, instead of migrating to other countries out of frustration occasioned by unemployment.