There is no doubt that bread has become one of the major staple foods for Nigerians. Along with noodles and spaghetti, bread is one other food item that anyone in a hurry to meet up with the day’s activities can find to eat without spending much time preparing it.

Bread goes with about anything, and can be eaten at any time of the day. It also comes in different varieties – be it in the size, flavour or manner of presentation, there just seems to be one type that would suit anybody’s preferences. No wonder it is in high demand everywhere in cities and villages across all classes of people.

Therefore, going into the bread baking business would definitely be a viable business for the entrepreneur who has a passion for it. There exist different entry levels for this business relating to the scale of production one chooses, and the class of society one chooses to serve.

Launching Out
Mr. Emmanuel A. Adenuga, owner of Ipilerere bakery, a small scale bakery, started his own business in 2000. “I learnt about the business for two years and later worked as an experienced baker in another bakery for three years,” he said. “I learnt about other catering services but had interest in bakery because of the rate at which people patronise it when compared to other catering services,” he added when asked why he chose to go into this particular venture.

So what are the facilities needed for a successful take off of a bakery? Space is one major consideration for this business, “one or two plots are required for the entire set up to accommodate the oven, bread mixer and miller,” hinted Mr. Adenuga.

“Ovens are either modernised or local. The local oven I use is made with mud and it is fuelled with firewood. It costs about N130,000.  The bread mixer is used to mix all the ingredients together like salt, water, sugar e.t.c.

“To start with, there is need for a qualified baker, apprentices, tins for baking, and a general start up capital of about N750,000.

“For daily production, Ipilerere Bakery produces 480 loaves of bread using a full bag and a quarter of flour, with sugar, salt, baking improver, yeast, water in their different quantites.

“Daily production takes 12 hours. In recent times, the prices of flour, sugar and salt have been consistent. That is, a bag of flour costs N5300, a bag of sugar goes for N8700 and a bag of salt costs N2100 at 50kg for each bag. While the baking tins are made from aluminum and can be used for three years or more before changing, since the tin sizes are same in all bakeries. Profit is calculated weekly, we calculate our turnover on Saturdays.”

Making a name in the business
Nigerian Tribune visited one of the largest producers of top quality bread which has presence in major cities of the country, north and south.

The first response received at the start of the interview with the company’s official in charge of production and distribution was, “We do not have a policy that allows for adverts and other forms of publicity in the media. You will hardly find anything about us in any paper or magazine. We believe that our products will do the advertising for us,” the official said, explaining that the company had a strong belief that the uniqueness of its products was what had sold the company’s brand far and wide, giving it a niche in the market.

“We make sure our products are peculiar and perfect. Whenever people taste our bread, they know that there cannot be any other like it except ours. If there are five ingredients required to produce the bread to taste, we ensure that those five are complete or else, we won’t make bread. We will go the extra mile to ensure that all the necessary ingredients are present in order to ensure that the taste remains the same always,” he said.

It was learnt that from the time this company began production, a standard was set at this initial stage. The company, as a matter of policy, decided that it would never deviate from the benchmark they had set for themselves. Therefore, to make a name for one’s brand of bread, consistency in quality and high standard of taste must be priority in production activities.

Distribution matters
Having city-wide distribution is the mark of a successful baking business and should be something an entreprenuer with high aspirations for business should wish for.

The source from the major bread bakery and confectionery, who spoke earlier, said that part of his job was to ensure that the entire city where the branch of the organisation was located was covered completely. To do this, he said they had a map which divided the city into zones, for which he had to seek out distributors, one at least for each zone. Every zonal distributor  makes cash purchases of a particular number of loaves based on the demand for that zone. Credit purchases are not allowed because this was discovered to be detrimental to the business. If any distributor pulls out, the distributor whose zone is closest to the zone lacking a distributor covers that zone, while a new distributor is sought for.

Challenges associated with the business
For a small scale bakery like Mr. Adenuga’s, “the major challenge has to do it with customers buying on credit, and they tend not to pay even before the turnover is calculated on Saturdays,” he said.

“Another challenge is in terms of materials. For instance, the increment in the price of flour or sugar cannot lead to automatic increase in the price of bread, because we have an association which we all belong to and this association is known as the Master Bakers Association; meaning that nobody can decide to increase the price except when the association decides to do so. Therfore, at a period of increment in price, we are likely to experience shortage in the profit.

“Also, shortage of workers affects production. Then, there is the challenge of insufficient and unskilled workers. There is need for constant supervision of workers.

“The business is highly competitive and since we have a trade union, we all have general prices. The business has a free entry and exit, especially when one is not up to the task of being consistent.”

It should be noted that with proper management skills, the problems and challenges associated with the business including credit facilities, inconsistency, inadequate skilled manpower, materials, time constraint, pressure and inability to meet up with the market demand, can be easily dealt with. Larger bakeries have credit purchases and protecting their ingredient formula as their own challenges.

Dealing with regulatory authorities
Recently, NAFDAC carried out a nationwide surveillance on the possible continued use of potassium bromate as bread improver in bakeries. At the end of the surveillance, many bakeries were found to be still using this substance.

According to NAFDAC’s Deputy Director, Chemical Monitoring Division, Narcotics & Controlled Substances Directorate, Mrs. Kumolu Johnson, the carcinogenic effect and the health risks of using potassium bromate in bread making has necessitated its ban in several countries including Nigeria.

Therefore, after obtaining a production licence, which is necessary for this kind of business, it becomes expedient to abide by NAFDAC’s standard of approved or recommended bread improvers, as some bakers compromise Good Hygienic Practice, Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) and Good Distribution Practice (GDP)  at the cost of public health.