LG Officials Are Terrible Extortionists – Popoola

Mr. Peter Popoola is the Chief Executive Officer of P.Bolfab Foods, the proud producer of Lisbon fruit juice. In this interview with Entrepreneur Excellence magazine, he shared insights on what distinguishes Lisbon fruit juice from its competitors, the hurdles faced by Nigerian entrepreneurs, the essential factors that can lead to business liquidation, and much more.

Excerpts:

Introduction

My name is Peter Popoola, I am the CEO of P.BOLFAB Foods. We are into production of fruit flavoured juice. Our brand name is Lisbon fruit juice.

When did you start the business?

I started the business about ten years ago.

What were your start-up challenges?

Initially, I was alone. I didn’t have much money, but the idea was there. I am also a marketing and sales expert, so I just used my skills with the little funds I had. I developed the product, and I started selling it. Because of a lack of funds at that time, I started in the smallest way possible. I couldn’t approach the bank and other financial institutions, so my savings essentially were used as the starting point.

What inspired you into this business.

My inspiration was that I wanted to help people in their entrepreneurial pursuits. I had the intention of establishing an entrepreneurial school where I could train people how to do business. I wanted to help people to employ others. I so much believe in being self-employed. I believe so much in entrepreneurship, and to be honest with you, that’s the only way for any country that wants to be self-sufficient. That’s why you see in most advanced countries government take the development of SMEs very seriously. In those countries, all you need is to have an idea, the skill and the experience, and the government will offer you the necessary support like production facilities, grants and so on. Even sometimes, they subsidise your product so you can sell it. They give you guaranteed sales. They’ll tell you we’ll buy this amount of your product if you can produce it.

There are several brands of fruit juice in the market. What makes Lisbon unique?

Our product is essentially for refreshment but we add vitamins A and C to make it more nourishing. So, you’re drinking Lisbon fruit juice and at the same time giving your body a good treat health-wise.

Is Lisbon fruit juice available outside Lagos?

Yes! We have our product in other states.

In terms of expansion, what should we expect from your organisation in the near future?

Presently, what we are doing is the mix-to-drink format. We do it to allow our consumers to mix it with other things. It is concentrated. You dilute it to control your sugar intake. You dilute until you are satisfied with the taste. So, you can dilute with wine, water and more to give you a fantastic taste. In addition to that, we want to go into direct fruit juice, like other soft drinks, without a need to mix before drinking. We also have children in mind, we are also going to consider their categories.

Considering the capital implication of this expansion plan. How do you intend to raise the funds?

Taking a loan from the bank is not encouraging, so we are not looking at that area at all. We will raise the funds locally through cooperatives, friends and family members.

What is your biggest challenge presently?

There are several challenges. The first one is funding. Funding that can help SMEs mostly is grants. If the government gives grants, they are going to gain it back because we’ll employ more people, and we will pay taxes. You give money to make people productive. It will also create social security. The second challenge is power. As small as our company is, whenever there’s no electricity supply, we cannot use a diesel-powered generator because it is too expensive, so what we do is wait for the light to return for us to produce. The third one is government policy. Some terrible policies of government are inimical. Most of the policymakers are not in this field. I suggest that we need real entrepreneurs and real SME Operators in policy making.

In addition to that, we also have local government officials, and these people are extremely terrible. They extort us in so many ways. The way we see these officials at times is like they’re not happy seeing us working. Their slogan always is ‘we will close down your factory’. So, we told them several times that when other countries are busy opening factories, what they want to do is to shut down factories. For example, that’s the last thing the government of Chinese will do. They will ensure they do everything possible for you to remain in business.

Due to the economic situation in the country, many SMEs have closed down. What keeps you going?

Number one, it is the grace of God. Number two, we have the experience and the skill. If you established an enterprise and you know nothing about it you’re in trouble because many Nigerian workers are extremely dangerous. I can tell you that 75% of those businesses that are closed down are due to their staff. Many workers are dubious and callous. Then, the remaining 25% may be a result of bad administration and the inexperience of the owner. We found out that many entrepreneurs do not have prerequisite knowledge of their business. They don’t have the technical know-how of what they are doing. They don’t have the prerequisite arithmetic knowledge of how to compute production cost, selling price and so on. It is a serious problem and it affects a large number of entrepreneurs.

How would you want the government to encourage your sector?

I have thought of this thing for many years. The entrepreneurs have a role to play, as well as the government, but because the government is like parent of everyone we expect that they should have a unit that will take care of SMEs, and those people don’t need to be Professors or Politicians because all these things we were taught in school are not practicable in the market. So, we look at people with ideas. People of high intelligence help SMEs in the area of capacity building, access to funds, market access and so on. Recently, there has been a policy that says if your turnover in a year is 24 million and below, you don’t pay tax; that is a policy to protect start-ups, so we want more of this policy. There are too many taxes here and there. SMEs should be protected. There are so many ways the government can encourage SMEs. For instance, they can help them sell, they can buy from them. When the government buys from SMEs, it is a way of stabilising the economy.

What do you have to say to your Customers?

We just want to tell them to keep supporting us because sales is the lifeblood of any business, no matter how good your product is, if nobody patronised you, you are in trouble. So, we want to tell them to kindly continue supporting us, to buy more and to be loyal.