Asiwaju: Indomie’s CRS is Anchored on Meeting the Needs of the Most Vulnerable
Dufil Prima Foods Limited, makers of the Indomie Instant Noodles recently started its plans to feed about two million Nigerians during its ongoing nationwide campaign to provide free lunch to school children and donate products to the less privileged in the society. Group Corporate Communications and Events Manager, Dufil Prima Foods Limited, Temitope Ashiwaju, spoke to THISDAY on this initiative. Excerpts:
We have seen how Indomie is going about giving free meals and cartons of Indomie Noodles to Nigerians, could you provide an overview of feeding initiative, vis-à-vis the company’s corporate social responsibility?
At Dufil, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been part and parcel of the company since its inception in 1996. And we feel that any responsible company should find the way of giving back to the society. So, for us, it is something that we are used to and it is just that for this particular year, it is very peculiar because we feel that a lot of Nigerians are going through tough times, especially with the rate of inflation. As such, we felt that we needed to do something. We felt that we needed to do some kind of intervention to alleviate the sufferings of people.
As a food manufacturing company, we felt that the direct intervention that we will do at this point in time was to feed the vulnerable people; and that’s why we have been going around feeding the vulnerable and donating our products, which includes the Indomie Instant Noodles, to communities that we feel that are at the bottom of the socio-economic class. That is what we have been doing thus far, and we will continue to do this nationwide, at least for now, so that Nigerians will feel the impact of having a friendly brand like ours amongst them.
What impact has this initiative had on these communities?
Oh that is very apparent. I mean, the feedback is almost instantaneous when you give people food. You could see the transformation and you could see the smiles on their faces. I just don’t want to say that when you feed somebody who is hungry, instantly there’s a great relief, and those are things that you can’t really measure or quantify in terms of Naira and Kobo. The truth is that some people skip one, two, three meals a day. Some don’t even eat for days. So, you can now imagine if you feed a family; and not just feeding, you are giving them hope, because if you give them, for instance, a cartoon of noodles, you have given that family hope of at least eating for another week or two. So, that’s how impactful the initiative has been in the communities we have visited.
So, the impact is felt almost immediately because life itself is about hope. If not, a lot of people will give up and they will say, well, it is better to take my life if there’s no hope. So, if you find good brands, like Dufil Prima Foods Limited and Indomie Instant Noodles coming to say that I want to do this kind of intervention, I want to feed people, I want to give people hope of having meals for another week or two; you have given life to them, and that’s what we want to continue to do as a responsible brand.
How does Indomie determine the communities and select beneficiaries for the feeding programme?
As you know, essentially our core business is manufacturing of instant noodles. So, to help in the selection of the communities, we entered into partnership with several non-governmental organisations (NGOs), for instance, the food banks. These are people who go from time to time to do some of these things. They have the database. They know where these people are, and are structured in such a way that they can handle these things, no matter the size of the crowd; they have dealt with them before using other brands to meet the yearnings of the people. So, they have the experience and they know these communities.
So, it is not as if we just sat down and we decide on the communities. It was based on the feedback that we got from all these NGOs. For instance, when you mention Makoko or those riverine areas in Lagos, everybody knows, or almost everybody is aware that it is inhabited by the most vulnerable in the society, and we know that there are lots and lots of challenges there. So, those are places that we go to - Ajegunle, Makoko, Onigarri, you know, all those places, the hinterlands.
In what ways does Indomie engage with local communities to understand which areas are most in need of this CSR programme?
In situations like that, there is what we call the environmental scanning. So, the fact that I have this number of items that I want to give out does not mean I am just going to dump them on the community. So, what we do is that we engage research agencies to go around and find out what the needs of the people are, not what we have in our warehouse. For instance, you might want to help a community and you feel that you have maybe a million exercise books and I want to give them to children of a particular community. However, in reality, what that community really need is just portable water, or classrooms, toilets, or roofs for their schools. So, you can see that if I continue in that line, there will probably just be a mismatch and we have failed to meet the needs of the people.
So, what we do is that we work side by side with research agencies, or government agencies. We go to some of these communities, and we find out what their pressing needs are vis-à-vis the resources that we have at that point.
For us at Dufil Prima Foods Limited and Indomie Instant Noodles, we have said that we are going to play active roles. We have this three-pronged approach, namely: education, primary health, and community development projects.
We have done quite a lot in terms of education. We’ve done scholarships, providing scholarship for indigent students, we are providing writing materials, writing boards for schools, and we are providing school supports for different public schools. For public health, we’ve made donations in the past to government hospitals, primary health centres, and we focus especially on the paediatric units of those hospitals, because where the children are is where we play very active roles. So, we are providing incubators, and other equipment that relates to child medicine. We have done quite well, and we’ve done this across public hospitals in the country. And of course, when it comes to community development projects, providing portable water through boreholes, tanks, incinerators. Some of these things we have done extensively well. Those are just the three areas we are focused on. That does not mean that we don’t do other areas when the need arises. Just like what we’re doing right now is an intervention because we feel that there is a need for it and that is why we have gone that way for now.
Can you provide insight into the states and communities that this initiative has reached so far, and any future plans to expand these initiatives to reach new states or communities?
Well, the plan is to continue to work with our partners who are on ground in recognizing those who are in dire need and making provision for those items that they need. And we hope and pray that the situation in Nigeria improves economically. So, for us it is a long thing. We always have a year plan. At the beginning of every year, what we do is that we ask the management and the shareholders to give us approvals to carry out some kind of initiatives in terms of CSR, and once this is done by them we will have already worked with agencies on ground or NGOs to let us know where we feel is best to be at any point in time and that’s what we will continue to do.
It is a continuous process for us because the brand experience with the populace is very germane and is key to us.
As you aware, Nigerians are very religious people, and we just had the Ramadan season, a very significant period for many Nigerians. Do you have any specific initiatives during such times?
Well, beyond religious beliefs, we feel that we are part of the community. We are part of the space itself, Nigeria. Now it’s Ramadan and because we are also a responsible company, we have said that just like the ideals that we’ve had in the past with our Muslim brothers and sisters across the country, during this period, we believe that one of the food items that should be highly considered should be Indomie Instant Noodles. So, there is what is called Iftar, when people break their fasts. We expect that our products should be one of those that will be used in breaking the fasting. What did was that we visited quite a number of mosques across the country by providing free food for them to be able to break their fasting.
This we did successfully in Kano, Kaduna, Yobe, Lagos, Ogun, and the likes, just all over the country. We are not leaving out anyone. Like I said, it is almost impossible for us to touch all the places that we would have loved to be. But I can tell you that we are doing quite a lot and we’re going to be touching millions of Nigerians during this Ramadan period. After Ramadan, what comes next? We still have school our feeding programme, after school feeding programme, we still have feeding for the vulnerable. After that, we’ll probably be making donations to orphanages, old people’s homes, for instance. There comes maybe Christmas period or end of year period. These are ongoing interventions that the company does, and we are used to it.