CBN Partners GBfoods, Others On N20bn Tomato Factory

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in partnership with GBfoods, a culinary products manufacturer, the Kebbi State Government and the Emirate of Yauri, has completed the building of a N20bn tomato processing factory, in Kebbi State.

The factory is the second largest in Nigeria and the only fully backward integrated plant in the Economic Community of West African States, and has the largest single tomatoes farm in Nigeria, GBfoods said in a statement.

According to the statement, when all phases of the project are finished, the factory would be the largest fresh tomatoes processing factory in sub-Saharan Africa.

“The investment in the world-class factory and adjoining farm includes a drip irrigation and fertigation infrastructure, greenhouses, seed planting robots, an incubation chamber and a plethora of agricultural machinery.

“The farm will serve a dual purpose. It will produce industrial tomatoes in the dry season and soya beans in the raining season.

 “The tomato factory will convert fresh tomatoes into tomato concentrate used for producing Gino Tomatoes Paste and Gino Tomato Pepper Onion Paste while the soya beans will be used to process soya-bean oil which is a critical ingredient for GBfoods’ Bama and Jago Mayonnaise,” the statement read partly.

It added that the project created over 1,000 jobs including 500 farming jobs, 150 factory jobs and 150 construction jobs.