Investing in Cornchips, Cornflakes Production Plants

Godwin Uba

The importance of establishing manufacturing industries in Nigeria cannot be over emphasized. Through the establishment of manufacturing industries, jobs will be created, there will be increase in GDP, generate products for local consumption as well as export market to generate foreign exchange.

Cornflake is a fast food eaten almost all households in Nigeria by old and young. It can be easily prepared with milk with hot or cold water. The major raw material for production of cornflake is maize (corn). Maize is grown in all the parts of the country.
Therefore, the raw material for the project is readily available. Other raw materials include sugar solution, malt and salt. These are also in abundant supply in Nigeria. Maize, the major raw material is cultivated in all parts of the country and the cultivation is very easy, cheap and gestation period very short.

Also the raw material, maize thrives well in all the states of the federation. The prevailing climatic and soil conditions in Nigeria are good for mass production of maize. From records available, there is so much wastages of maize during the growing season due to lack of inadequate storage facilities.

The waste could be prevented by the provision of cheap silos for maize storage and preservation. This project is seen as one of the ways to prevent wastages. From our study, there is virtually no small scale commercial manufacturer of high quality corn flakes in Nigeria today.

There are only two major companies producing cornflakes in Nigeria and their production output is very small to meet up with the increasing demand for cornflakes.
Cornflakes are a consumable demanded on daily basis. To meet up with the increasing consumption rate, more small scale investors are highly needed to boost the supply.

Small scale prospective investors who carried out a comprehensive studies backed up with effective marketing strategies should be able to economize costs to reap huge benefits resulting from the existing supply-demand gap in this area. To set up this project, the required machinery and equipment include boilers, separators, sifter, mixer, granulators, rotary oven tanks, silos, screening and cooling equipment.

These machines and equipment are locally available and details information will be given to prospective investors. The plant will be able to process up to 5metric tons of corn/maize in a shift of 8 hours, producing about 3 tons of cornflakes in a shift. It can be operated in a double shift of 8 hours each in a day. The production process is simpler.

Briefly put, it involves storing maize in the silos, cleaning and grinding process; mixing up with other ingredients such as sugar, malt and salt and drying the products with a rotary drying oven. After drying, the cooling process is carried out, followed by packaging process. Details will be given to prospective investors.

The project can be set up in any part of the country, since maize (corn) is grown in all the parts of the country. From preliminary feasibility carried out, the project can be started with a total minimum sum of N78 million, depending on many factors which includes the capacity of the proposed plant Based on investment analysis carried out a turnover of N550 million is achievable in the first year working for average of 250 working days in a year.

The payback period is within two years, and return on investment is over 56 per cent.
Details including production technology, process flow, size and structure of the local markets and ECOWAS sub-region, market share and effective marketing strategies to be adopted will be incorporated in a comprehensive feasibility studies report for prospective investors. Prospective investors will be assisted in the procurement and installation of the machinery and equipment as well as sourcing of the required funds where it is not possible to embark on complete funding of the project. For details please contact the writer:

Uba can be reached on 08023664368 or ubagodwin@yahoo.com