How We Produce Blumeth, Top Notch Table Water Amidst Rising Cost...MD

By Lucky Isibor 

The managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Blumeth Water, Mr. Benjamin Iluore has described the astronomical and unabated increase in cost of production in Nigeria as stifling and inhibiting the survival of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the country. He particularly noted that the cost of production materials of table water has increased unit price of table water in the market and appealed to governments at various levels to see how they can assist SMEs to survive.

Iluore made the appeal while speaking with newsmen in Benin City on how his company, Blumeth Water manage to remain in the market amidst high cost of production and the need to continue to produce safe drinking water for the populace. 

While enumerating the challenges faced by water producers and other SMEs to include power shortage, astronomical cost of diesel to power generators, galloping inflation, unstable foriegn exchange rate among others, Iluore said:"The major constraints inhibiting production is the issue of power, which of course, is a general problems to small and  medium enterprise. I know the government is trying to do something in this regard but the efforts has not yielded the desired results. Some people have resulted to buying generator but the cost of running the generator is too expensive . The cost of diesel is gone out of control . 

"I  went to install a transformer for my factory which of course is very expensive. Installing a  100 KVA cost close to five to six million Naira that would have gone a long way to boosting productions. The cost of production is too high. Resources that would have gone into production that would have reduced market prices are now going into the cost of production and consequently,  the manufacturer factors the cost of production into the final market price. Because you have to invest so much on power, this heightens the general cost of production which is eventually passed on to the final consumer which ordinarily shouldn't be. So the cost of production in Nigeria today is a big problem.  

"The cost of packaging water alone is more than the cost of the water itself but we can not get the water to be consumed on our palm without proper packaging. The cost of the production materials shouldn't be that too expensive but when you have a situation where all the people selling the materials are foreigners from the Asian continent who are only out to maximise profit, what can anyone do.  When we buy at exorbitant prices, we produce in order to make profit so as to remain in business.  So that is the chain. But our customers are not seeing our own predicament, they say oh, why should water be that expensive but they are not seeing all the other cost of all other factors that go into the whole production processes."

"Aside from that, the high rate of inflation  in the country is another problem. Over 18% rate of inflation as at last month or there about. You ask your self, the cost of production is going up every day. Packaging takes too much of the cost of production. If you remove some of these  cost of production  you will find out that the price of bottled water shouldn't be that expensive as is currently the case. 

On why he went into table water production, Benjamin Iluore, who has a first degree in Political Science and a masters degree in International Relations and Diplomacy said, "The establishment of Blumeth Table Water was actually a fall out of my experience in one of the African countries. I saw the high quality of water there and I was just thinking of the possibility of having such in Nigeria, a country with a population of well over two hundred million people. I just told myself that it would be good to have such quality table water even though we have some companies that are doing well but they are very few. 

"So, when I came back, I told myself that I needed to do something different. I tasted some water in Benin here, when I came back, but it wasn't a good experience, so I decided to do something different from the ordinary, something unique and of very high quality, different from what is currently available in the market."

"Also, a friend of mine came into the country from overseas and he drank some of the water he met in town and he started having diarrhoea, stooling and  other stomach problems and ever since then, when ever he is coming into the country, he would buy the quantity of bottled water that he would need for his stay. But sometimes last year when he visited Nigeria, he came to see me in the factory and I gave him some quantities to take with him and he said the water was very good  and that he is  satisfied with the quality and ever since,  he no longer need to import water each time he is coming to Nigeria but now he drinks Blumeth Table Water and to us, that is a testimony of the quality of Blumeth Table Water. Maintaining quality is our watchword"

Assuring consumers that Blumeth water will continue to maintain high standard of production in line with global best practices in the production of safe drinking water, Iluore noted that there's no human contact with the water from  the point the water enters the production line to when it is finally packaged for consumption adding that the fixing of the expiration date of the water is computerised just as the entire process is automated.

"There is no way you will drink our water and you get diarrhoea or whatever.  We don't compromise our products. Blumeth Table Water is a top notch table water.You saw for yourself all our filtration processes. We are here to fill that missing gap of consistent quality. My message to the public is that Blumeth Table Water is here to fill that gap between what they have been seeing and what true quality product should be , because, Blumeth Table Water is a top notch. We are here to bridge the gap between what they used to see and what quality should be".

"Like you saw from the tour of our factory, those equipment you saw there are top notch which are so expensive  to acquire but we had to get them because of the quality we have in mind".

"Our equipment are all fully automated. There is no point at all that the water we produce is exposed to human interference. So, there is therefore no suspicion of hair or anything for that matter  falling into the water or the water getting exposed to any form of contaminants during the process of production and packaging".

 "There is never any form of human interaction with Blumeth Table Water from the source, all through the production processes even up to the point of packaging. All our production processes is automated" he concluded."