Chilli pepper: How processing to specification can secure deals with food companies

Agri-businesses wondering why securing chillipepper supply deals with food processing companies in Nigeria come as a hassle might need to shift their focus to the required processing specification to succeed in their bid, experts say. There are value-addition opportunities that are being undertapped in the chilli-pepper sphere simply because farmers, aggregators and processors often ignore certain health standards and focus excessively on the volume of production and supply.

It is an error that edges local competitors out of demand, as food processing companies typically import the majority of their herbs and spices. Nigeria’s noodle’s market, for instance, has De United Foods Industries Limited, Honeywell Flour Mills Plc., and Chikki Foods Industries Limited are key players that use chilli pepper as a key ingredient for sauce. But they continue to look to India and China for the majority of chilli-pepper supply despite some local production.

What do they seek in these imports? The processors care about the produce being sound, clean and

practically free of pests’ damage. They want to ensure that abnormal external moisture and internal browning don’t occur.

They are equally concerned about the dehydration and processing facility in pathogen-reducing processes, natural steam sterilisation in addition to being able to withstand transport and handling. Adetoun AbbiOlaniyan, the chief executive officer at Thistleberry Natural Farms said non-adherence to these technical details hinders many from tapping substantially from the domestic demand available. The farmer and processor mainly attributed the challenge to the fact that Nigeria is yet to fully evolve into a process-oriented country and this continues to impact how things are handled.

For example, it would be a gross undoing for an agribusiness looking to partner a noodles producer to tender as samples, processed chilli pepper sourced from open markets.

“I’m stressing specification because there is a technical skill involved. It is not just processing chilli. At Mile 12 market for instance where chilli peppers are offloaded when they arrive from the north, there are also some processors that have mills where they grind. Some of these already-blended ones are not 100 percent chilli pepper. You cannot take that one and say that is your sample,” Abbi-olaniyan explained.

She suggested that interested businesses should target these companies whose products need chilli pepper, where their input come from, get samples of what their inputs are, study it and learn how to process to specification.

“Herbs and spices are things that go into making flavours for things we eat such as ketchup, mayonnaise, salad cream. Many of them are imported. But from an agribusiness point of view, a lot of our products in Nigeria can also meet this standard,” she said.

People can also, dig ways to diversify the use of chilli pepper beyond production. Cayenne pepper value, for instance, can be used in about four ways. It can be whole Cayenne pepper. It can be deseeded, meaning the seeds has been extracted and converted to flakes. It can be with seeds and is still flakes. It can be crushed, meaning there is a bit of seed in it, a bit of powder and a bit of flakes in it. It can be crushed and sieved from the powder since the seed is actually where the spice is.

The product opportunities also include chilli oil, meaning chilli that has already been immersed in a carrier oil. People, who don’t like a lot of pepper but want to feel some spice, use chilli oil for pancakes, eggs, noodles. In 2019 first quarter, the EU Ambassador to Nigeria, Karlsen Ketil, said that the European Union has approved of $10million grant to support small and medium enterprises (SMES) who wish to add value to tomato, pepper, chilli, ginger, leather and garments processing in Nigeria, stressing value-addition as the future of farm produce.

In terms of export, European consumers are becoming more familiar with ethnic cuisines, a trend expected to contribute to the consumption of chilli peppers. The European market for fresh chilli peppers is still a specialised market, which is supplied primarily by producers in southern Europe, Turkey and northern Africa, according to CBI Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Because of the strong regional competition, it is advised that opportunities are sought in specific varieties.

The chilli pepper is the fruit of plants of the genus Capsicum. Red chillies contain large amounts of vitamin C and small amounts of carotene. Considerably lower amounts of both substances are contained in yellow and, especially, green chillies which are essentially unripe fruit. Peppers are also a good source of most B vitamins, particularly vitamin B6. They are very high in potassium, magnesium and iron.

Not exact statistics, the total annual production of all pepper varieties is estimated to exceed 34 million tonnes, with an annual increase of around 2 percent. The production of chilli peppers is much smaller than the production of sweet pepper varieties.

The United States produced 668 thousand tonnes of sweet bell peppers and 192 thousand tonnes of chilli peppers in 2016, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

India and China are major producers of chilli peppers. And the majority of the production in India and China is used to supply domestic or nearby Asian markets, as well as for drying or processing purposes. Dried chilli peppers are most common in India. Latin America and the USA also have large production, with many different varieties of chilli peppers.

In Europe, Spain is the largest producer of chilli peppers, mostly the long type ‘Spanish pepper’.