Jun 21, 2010 By Naomi Uzor

The Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC) has announced a 13 per cent growth in its turnover to N90.2 billion in its 2009 financial statements from N80.1 billion recorded in 2008.In his statement at the 2009 annual general meeting of the company, Amb Olusegun Apata, Chairman, NBC, said that despite a challenging business environment imposed by the global recession and the Benin plant fire incident of December 2008, the company recorded significant improvement in top and bottom lines in the period under review.

He noted that the company recorded a profit before taxation and extraordinary items of N4.33 billion from N2.44 billion recorded in 2008. “We experience high input costs in 2009 mainly from an increase in the price of sugar, a major input in our production process which went up by more than 16 per cent compared with 2008. Cost of diesel (AGO) which we use for power generation in all our 13 plants and depots, and prices for packaging materials especially for one way packs also went up,” he stated.

He said in 2009, the company’s supply chain continued in its effort to further upgrade production facilities and improve product and package quality as the juice packaging was changed from brick to prisma, which in turn boosted the sales volume in this segment of the market and positively affected the market share, adding that the supply chain also played an important role in rebuilding the Benin plant and facilitated the installation of a new ultra glass line at the Ikeja plant.

Apata disclosed that the new juice line which is under construction at the Ikeja plant will further boost the company’s market share and profit at completion and that the company continued investing on staff during the year through various local and overseas training. The company will redouble its focus this year on managing and improving quality, and on strengthening compliance structures, this will improve their position in the market and positively affect our business, our people, our suppliers and our customers.

We will continue to focus strongly on cost control and reduce waste and losses, we will also continue to invest in our plant operations by upgrading our production facilities and infrastructures,”he said.He reassured the consumers that they shall continue to provide them with their preferred choice of beverage at the right quality and right place no matter where they are in Nigeria.

(Source:Vanguard)