Amid stubbornly high food prices and rising worries about supply-chain bottlenecks, Nigeria’s food inflation crisis is placing increasing strain on households and businesses. In this interview with DAMILOLA AINA, Kofi Abunu, Managing Director of Food Concepts Limited, shares an operator’s insight into the true drivers of food inflation, contending that post-harvest losses and poor infrastructure, rather than outright scarcity, are key factors
To what extent is Nigeria’s current food inflation driven by post-harvest losses?
Food inflation in Nigeria is driven by several forces, but post-harvest losses account for a meaningful share that is often overlooked. A significant portion of locally produced food, especially poultry, vegetables, grains, and fresh produce, is lost between farm and market due to poor storage, inefficient logistics, and limited processing capacity. These losses tighten supply and push prices up, independent of exchange rates or global shocks.
For the Quick Service Restaurant industry, this directly affects input costs, menu pricing, and consistency of supply. By reducing waste across the value chain, we not only stabilise costs for our brands but also contribute to a more resilient food system. Tackling post-harvest losses at scale would ease food inflation and create long-term sustainability for Nigeria’s QSR and broader food industry.
You’ve maintained that infrastructure, not scarcity, is the main driver of food inflation. Can you explain how power outages, transportation bottlenecks, and inadequate storage systems directly push food prices higher for consumers?
Food inflation is less about scarcity and more about inefficiency. For QSR businesses, unreliable power raises operating costs through generators and increases the risk of food loss. Transport delays disrupt just-in-time supply chains, while inadequate storage limits consistency and scale. These pressures squeeze margins and force difficult pricing decisions.
Despite this, companies like ours continue to invest in alternative power solutions, stronger local sourcing, better cold-chain systems, and process efficiencies. By building resilience into our operations, we can manage costs, maintain quality, and keep expanding to serve a market with strong long-term growth potential.
From an operator’s perspective, which private-sector investments, such as cold storage, aggregation centres, embedded power, or logistics fleets, would most quickly reduce food waste?
From my standpoint, the fastest wins come from modular cold-chain infrastructure at the aggregation level. Cold rooms located close to farms, combined with simple grading and aggregation hubs, would immediately cut post-harvest losses for perishables.
Next is embedded power for these hubs, because cold assets without reliable electricity fail quickly. Finally, dedicated short-haul logistics fleets, reefers or insulated vehicles moving produce quickly from farm clusters to urban markets would close the loop.
In short, invest where the loss happens: farm-gate cooling, aggregation, reliable power, and fast distribution. These targeted investments deliver faster impact than large, centralised facilities.
Nigeria still imports food items that are produced locally. Is this mainly due to logistics shortcomings, quality and consistency challenges, or a trust gap between farmers and large-scale buyers?
It’s really a combination of all three. Weak logistics and storage make it difficult to move local produce efficiently at scale. Inconsistent quality limits what large buyers can depend on, and there’s still a trust gap between farmers and formal off-takers.
From the perspective of quick-service restaurant operators in Nigeria, this directly affects our ability to deliver consistent and affordable food across our networks. When local supply falls short, imports become the default. Closing these gaps through better infrastructure, farmer capability building, and stronger partnerships would reduce import dependence, strengthen local value chains, and support more sustainable growth across the sector.
Despite losing roughly half of its strawberry harvest to spoilage, Nigeria still spends about N600m importing the fruit. Based on your experience, where exactly is the breakdown occurring between the farm and the market?
This is not a product we use in our business, but from our experience, the breakdown is largely post-harvest, not production. Some strawberry farmers, for example, lack access to cold-chain infrastructure, proper storage, and fast, reliable logistics. Strawberries are extremely perishable, so without immediate cooling, efficient transport, and structured offtake agreements, a large portion spoils before reaching the market. At the same time, demand from hotels, quick-service restaurants, and processors requires consistent quality and year-round supply, which imports currently guarantee. Bridging this gap requires investment in post-harvest handling, aggregation, and market linkages, not just more farming.
Food Concepts operates a 99% local supply chain despite an environment widely seen as hostile to manufacturing and logistics. What specific systems or strategic choices enabled this?
Over the past few years, we have been deliberate about building for the Nigerian context. First, we formed strategic partnerships and invested in local supplier development, working closely with farmers (especially poultry) and manufacturers to meet QSR-grade standards rather than relying on imports. Second, we built strong internal quality control, forecasting, and inventory systems to reduce variability and waste. Third, we localised our logistics, using shorter supply loops, multiple sourcing options, and buffer strategies to manage infrastructure and FX risks. This systems-led, partnership-driven approach, not shortcuts, made an approximately 99 per cent local supply chain sustainable despite the challenges.
Cold-chain infrastructure is often framed as a government responsibility. In practical terms, which aspects can the private sector address more quickly, and which still require state involvement? Could public-private partnerships help bridge these gaps?
Absolutely. While the government has a critical role to play, the private sector can move much faster in commercially viable areas of the cold chain. This includes investments in refrigerated transport, temperature-controlled storage, food processing, and integrated supply chains where demand is clear and scale can be achieved. At Food Concepts Plc, for example, we have invested in cold rooms, in-house logistics, and supplier partnerships that ensure proteins, dairy, and fresh produce meet quality and safety standards from farm to restaurant.
However, systemic constraints such as unreliable power, poor rural road networks, and fragmented regulation cannot be solved by individual companies alone. These require strong state intervention. Public-private partnerships are therefore essential. PPPs can unlock shared infrastructure, such as cold hubs near agricultural clusters, while allowing private operators to manage them efficiently. For Nigeria’s QSR industry, resolving cold-chain gaps is critical to reducing food waste, stabilising input costs, improving food safety, and enabling consistent national expansion. When cold-chain systems work, the entire food service ecosystem becomes more competitive and resilient.
From your experience running structured food businesses across West Africa, how does Nigeria stack up against its peers in terms of cold storage capacity, power reliability, and overall supply-chain efficiency?
Nigeria is the larger market but operationally more demanding. Cold storage capacity is more limited relative to scale, energy is far less reliable – requiring heavy self-generation – and logistics are more fragmented, which reduces supply-chain efficiency.
Ghana, while smaller, benefits from more stable power, shorter routes, and more predictable logistics, making cold-chain management and planning easier. For operators like us in both markets, Nigeria requires more redundancy and cost just to achieve the same service levels.
Which policy or regulatory change could most significantly reduce post-harvest losses over the next two years?
The single biggest impact would come from clear incentives for private cold-chain investment, specifically import-duty waivers and tax credits for cold rooms, reefer trucks, and related equipment, combined with faster approvals.
If the government lowers the cost and friction of deploying cold-chain infrastructure at scale, private capital will move quickly, and post-harvest losses, especially for perishables, would drop materially within 2-3 years.
Looking forward, do you view Nigeria’s food inflation issue as a fixable infrastructure problem, or as a deep-seated structural crisis that requires a complete overhaul of the supply chain?
Nigeria’s food inflation challenge is largely an infrastructure and execution problem, not an unsolvable structural crisis. Inefficiencies in storage, transportation, and aggregation continue to add avoidable costs to food before it reaches consumers. Addressing these gaps would materially reduce pressure on prices.
For the QSR industry, this is decisive. Our ability to offer affordable, consistent meals depends on predictable input costs and reliable supply. Improving food infrastructure strengthens price stability, supports local sourcing at scale, and allows the sector to grow sustainably while protecting consumers. Without these fixes, inflation risks becoming entrenched, but with the right investments, it is both manageable and reversible.
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