NAN-AE-1
Powder
By Chidinma Agu
Lagos, Dec. 18, 2017 (NAN) An egg powder specialist, Dr Olusegun Sansi, on Monday urged poultry farmers to develop interest in establishing egg powder manufacturing plants.
Sansi, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Jesswol Ltd., gave this advice in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
According to him, the establishment of egg powder producing factories in the country is a veritable way of minimising losses during egg glut.
“Unfortunately, the result of a survey on the absence of egg powder plants across the country shows that majority of poultry farmers are comfortable with the production of egg as table eggs for consumers.
“Even investors in the poultry layer industry want to maintain the status quo in spite of the regular occurrence of egg glut in the market.
“It is time for the farmers and investors to develop interest in this area of egg value chain,” he said.
Sansi said that in China and India, for instance, egg processing ventures were utilised as a means of creating alternative products and markets for consumption of eggs.
He said that the establishment of functional egg processing industries in those countries constituted a means of eliminating egg market failures.
Sansi said that the production of egg powder required the acquisition of an egg powder processing equipment flow line.
He said that the machine had certain components which broke eggs and converted the liquid content into powder, while packaging the powder in specified quantities for sales to consumers.
Sansi said that Nigeria as a nation could only boast of one egg powder factory, which was producing at a micro scale.
He said that the production output of egg powder in the country was very low and quite insignificant.
Sansi underscored the need to urgently set up medium and large-scale egg powder processing plants in the country so as to service the food processing and beverage industries.
He said that the establishment of the plants would also reduce the foreign exchange that was hitherto used to import egg powder into the country.
He noted that the country’s poultry industry was able to produce enough eggs to feed the citizens, adding that it could export the excess eggs if they were converted into egg powder. (NAN)
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