Price of major ingredients used in preparing a pot of Jollof rice for an average Nigerian family grew by 8.3 per cent in four months, according to an SBM Intelligence report.
According to the report made available to Brand Spur Nigeria, the national average price of cooking a pot of Jollof rice rose marginally to N6,545 in June 2018, from N6,040 in March 2018.
The index noted that the average national price had started to rise again, after declining in late 2017, which was also significantly higher than the base price from July 2016. This reality is in tandem to the latest figures released by Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics.
The SBM Jollof Rice Index, a composite index that tracks the prices of the main ingredients used to prepare a pot of one of Nigeria’s primary delicacies, Jollof rice, shows that it costs Nigerians more to prepare a pot of Jollof rice [including the mandatory chicken] for five persons than it did in 2016.
Over the last four months – from March 2018 to June 2018, the index has risen steadily, indicating a steady increase in food prices. By the end of June, the index has risen to the highest ever since we began tracking in July 2016. This trend is the same as when the index is disaggregated by region as shown below.
Kano remains the town with the highest average cost of a pot of Jollof at N7,140. The ingredient responsible for this still remains turkey, as a kilogram of turkey in Kano’s Sabo Gari market costs significantly more when compared to other markets as captured by our last report. Awka and Onitsha are the cheapest places to prepare a pot of the national delicacy at N5,408.
In both Abuja and Lagos, rising costs have opened an opportunity for smaller manufacturers, which has led to an inflow of more varieties of goods as compared to the past. In reaction to this, many of the larger FMCG manufacturers are now repackaging goods in smaller quantities (often called economy packs) that command lower retail prices that are friendlier to the budget requirements of medium to low-income earners. While this gives buyers the opportunities to continue patronising their preferred brands at lower prices, there is some evidence in company financial filings that the rise in more creative “economy packs” is hurting the bottom line of manufacturers as they seek to preserve market share at the expense of increasing the unit margin gain on their products.
Calabar’s Jollof rice average cost follows the low average of the two south-eastern cities at N5,833. In Lagos, Nigeria’s financial capital, the cost for a pot was friendly at N5,933, while in Abuja, the national capital, a pot of Jollof will cost more at N6,742 and the south-western city of Ibadan will demand N7,033 for a pot of Jollof. In April 2018, the national average price of cooking a pot of Jollof rose marginally to N6,270 from N6,040 in March 2018. It then rose to N6,445 in May, and N6,545 in June.
