By Ebele Orakpo
Engr. Emeka Nwachinemere is the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Livingstone Mega Industries (LMI), a processing, manufacturing, supplies, services, and agricultural consultancy company. In this chat with Financial Vanguard, Nwachinemere speaks on why he left the engineering field for agriculture and the challenges. He says his vision is to give the best value to the customers through a combination of aggressive strategic marketing, quality products and service delivery at competitive prices.
Excerpts:
On what led him into food processing:
According to Engineer Emeka Nwachinemere, the establishment of Livingstone Mega Industries (LMI) was as a result of his quest to add value to crops and fruits with the most wastage and make agriculture a profitable venture in Nigeria.
“My foray into business wasn’t a surprise for me; the sector I chose to launch my business career and the timing of entry were. I studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Nigeria Nsukka, and by my projections, I would work for at least five years, raise some capital and then start a firm in any sector but the agro-allied sector,” said Emeka. As they say, man proposes but God disposes. Instead of following his plans, certain events overtook and changed his plans for good.
He said: “At some point in my final year, I was exposed to the precarious state of our agricultural sector; how several countries outperformed us. More saddening was the level of post- harvest losses that made agriculture an unprofitable venture. Doing a bit of soul searching, I quizzed myself as to the purpose of the education I had acquired if it couldn’t be used to solve problems. Little by little, I was swept away on an agro-crusade to be a vanguard of change, and revolutionize the agro-allied sector. Consequently, Livingstone Mega Industries Limited was incorporated on the 4th of March, 2011 to pursue the business of agriculture; exploring the crops and fruits with the most wastage and adding value to them.”
Chukwuemeka Nwachinemere
Chukwuemeka Nwachinemere
Going into farming:
“We began business cultivating crops like cassava, maize, plantain, and pineapple in our farms at Ogun-Osun River Basin Authority, Iseyin, and Okaka; all in Oyo State. We also carried out trainings on Integrated Farming techniques, Processing, and Waste-to-wealth techniques trainings. Then there was an agricultural investment scheme we called Livingstone Farm Estate, in which investors made profits annually proportional to the investment slots they had acquired.
“Gradually, we built up our holdings, acquiring lands in Iwo, Osun State, and Kwali, Abuja, for our different expansion projects. Along the line, we diversified into what was truly our passion; value addition, with the production of dry fruits and nuts.”
Diversifying:
In order to minimize post-harvest losses experienced by farmers in Nigeria and give Nigerians healthy alternatives in snacks, LMI went into dry fruits production.
“Dry fruit,” Emeka said, is a fruit from which most of the water content has been removed either naturally through sun drying, or through the use of specialized dryers or dehydrators. It is prized because of its sweet taste, nutritive value, and long shelf life.”
“With about six million Nigerians reported diabetic, according to a 2006 report by Nigerian National Diabetes Centre, Nigeria leads Africa on Diabetes prevalence with a 2.7% prevalence rate. In fact, more Nigerians die from diabetes than from HIV/AIDS. Seeing that diabetes has no known cure, regulated food intake remains the only means of managing blood sugar level and hence diabetes. However, people’s craving for sweet things would always persist; hence the need to create awareness on the availability of a healthy alternative in dry fruits.
“Dried fruits retain most of the nutritional value of fresh fruits. The specific nutrient content of the different dried fruits reflects their fresh counterpart and the processing method. In general, all dried fruits provide essential nutrients and an array of health protective bioactive ingredients, making them valuable tools to both increase diet quality and help reduce the risk of chronic diseases.
“Dried fruits are a particularly significant source of dietary fiber and potassium; they are among the top five contributors of potassium and fiber. They also provide essential nutrients that are otherwise low in today’s diets, such as vitamin A, calcium, vitamin K, iron, and copper. Recent analysis of dry fruits and those who take them indicates that diets high in dried fruits are associated with lower Body Mass Index (BMI), reduced overweight and obesity and improved diet quality; these data show that the prevalence of overweight/obesity and prevalence of abdominal obesity are lower for those who consume dried fruits than for those who did not.”
He said LMI believes in giving the customers only healthy food choices so in dry fruit snacks, there are no preservatives or additives, “it will always remain 100% natural.
“We have varieties like pineapple, apple, coconut, banana, mango, and pawpaw fruit chips and we allow our clients choose levels of dryness for each product, from 9%-15% moisture content,” he said.
The company whose vision is to change the face of business globally, one sector at a time, has seven people in its employ and consists of six divisions viz: Extraction/ Processing; Manufacturing; Export/General Supplies; Aquaculture; Engineering Consultancy and Business Crisis Management.
Source:
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