Food and Beverages Sub-sectors are discussed in the article. We hope you find the article informative and helpful for your research.

Sectors of Food and Beverage Industry

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The food and Beverages Sector comprises other sub-sectors such as the Cereals, Legumes, Flours, Bakery and Biscuits sub-sector, Cocoa, Chocolate, Tea, Coffee, and Sugar sub-sector, Daily products, meat, fish, and animal feeds sub-sector, Fruit and Vegetable Products sub-sector, Fats, Oils and their Products sub-sector, Producers of specular fats and oil sub-sector.

Cereals, Legumes, Flours, Bakery, and Biscuits sub-sector

There are classified under two categories namely roots and tuber products and biscuits, Bread, and Confectioneries.

The primary root and tuber crops are yams, cassava, and cocoyam Irish and sweet potatoes are produced in comparatively small quantities.

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Yam processing is a relatively small industrial activity that takes place in the informal sector. Recent activity in the organized private sector is the production of pounded yam powder by Cadbury Nigeria Limited as an instant-pounded yam flour.

Cassava is a much more important crop than yam. Over 75% of the annual cassava crop is processed into these three products starch, garri, and cassava chips.

The raw materials required for Biscuits, Bread, and Confectioneries are flour sugar, fat, cellophane, and chemicals. The total flour requirement of this group is approximately 3.2 million metric tons.

There is current research for baking substitutes for wheat in biscuits, bread, and confectioneries that require wheat flour.

Cocoa, Chocolate, Tea, Coffee, and Sugar sub-sector

The cocoa industry in Nigeria is not fully developed. Chocolate manufacturing is just beginning with Cadbury Nigeria Limited.

The main emphasis in Nigeria is the production of cocoa butter. Cocoa butter is exported primarily although some are used locally for cosmetics manufacture.

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Cocoa butter is the cocoa product that is most widely used in the food processing industry. Raw materials for this group are cocoa beans.

Before the oil boom era, Nigeria was the world’s number one producer and exporter of cocoa beans with an annual output of about 250,000 metric tonnes according to statistics.

Dairy Products, Meat, Fish, and Animal Feeds sub-sector

The materials for daily products are employed in the form of full cream milk. Also, fish is used as food while animal feeds can be used for various multi-purposes. The raw materials for meat production are cattle, goats, sheep, pigs, and poultry. The production of these types of livestock takes place in smallholdings, though there are peculiar ownership and management patterns around the country. Beef is used to make bacon, sausages, etc.

Fruit and Vegetable Products sub-sector

This provides key raw materials for the fruits and vegetable processing industries. The two major processors in the group are Cadbury (Nig.) Ltd. in Gombe and Vom. Recently when the Federal Government banned the importation of most fruits and vegetable products, processors utilized the imported paste or puree and powdered forms of these products.

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Fats, Oils, and their Products sub-sector

This industrial group can be divided into three categories namely primary crushing of oilseeds, refiners of crude vegetable oils, and producers of special fats and oil depending on the degree of the processing carried out on the raw materials.

The conventional raw materials are palm fruit, palm kernel, groundnut, and cottonseed, while soya bean and sunflower seeds have been recently discovered.

Minor oil seeds that have been crushed include melon seeds. Although Nigeria produces substantial quantities of shea nut, copra, and sesame or which are exported, none of these are commercially processed locally for their oils.

Conclusively, the demand for various raw materials has far outstripped supply making the prices of oilseeds, crude oils, and other products soared in a manner characteristic of demand-pull inflation.

Government policies that favor the exportation of raw materials with little or no value-added do not encourage local processing.

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Also, the large-scale exportation of oilseeds, especially palm kernel and soya beans characterized in 2001 and early 2003 deprived local processors of needed raw materials.

The gravity of oil seeds supplied by the peasant farmers is sometimes low. Thus, local production should be encouraged and maintained.