How To Start a Lucrative Fruit Juice Business In Nigeria

Lucrative Fruit juice business in Nigeria is likened to sachet pure water business, you can’t go wrong with it. The reason being that Nigeria is one of the highest consumers of fruit juice in the world coupled with being the biggest market in the African continent.

A very good investment in fruit juice production in Nigeria will yield threefold of returns on investment within a short period of time.

50% of the more than 150 million population consume fruit juice on daily basis. No wonder companies like Chivita, Coca Cola, UAC, Leventis Foods, and others have been thriving in the business and making billions of dollars unannounced. Government ban on importation of foreign made fruit juice into Nigeria has further doubled the profit potential in fruit juice production business in Nigeria.

The fruit juice production is capital intensive but worth every penny of your investment. The good news is that there is still provision to start small and explore new frontier.

How to Start a Lucrative Fruit Juice Business In Nigeria

The Establishment of Fruit Juice Business In Nigeria requires one to thread some steps. They are as follow:

1. Setup the Business

A juicing business costs less to begin. Just create a name. Once you have got a name for your business, the registration of the business becomes legally necessary. To avoid any face off with the government, and to ensure standardization, you must be licensed by the appropriate governmental regulatory agencies like SON, NHIS, NAFDAC, Ministry of health, and CAC before you begin fruit juice business in the country.

NAFDAC Approval is very important, you need to have this before engaging in the commercial production of any food, drugs, and beverages. Approach NAFDAC after you have successfully setup your fruit juice production plant, produce few bottles and take it to them for final approval. You must begin this process well ahead of time.

These bodies will provide you with the necessary registration, licensing and all forms of paperwork required to operate natural fruit juice  business.
The cost of registration for a business name in Nigeria, for example, is about  N15,000 or thereabouts.

Following this is the need for modern fruit juice Production Equipment and Machinery which are:

• A Boiler
• A filling machine
• A filter press
• A tank for blending
• A tank for washing the fruit
• An extractor
• Cutting boards
• Knives (stainless steel)
• Peeler
• Water Containers

All those above should cost no less than N265,000 altogether and that is approximately $680 without the cost of having to rent a space.

2. Create your Menu

There is a special and very easy step that you can follow to creatively bring out your own special taste, and that will as a market brand distinguish you in the competition.
There are various fruits available to choose from and make juices. Some of the essential raw materials for making fruit juice include Paw Paw, Oranges, Lemon, Lime, Pineapple, Mangoes, and Guava. These are harvested and available in abundance in Nigeria.

The combinations below are the methodical menu frequently used by other brands. There are 5 categories of ingredients that make them up. These are:

i. Sweet Fruits: Orange, Apple, Pineapple
ii. Acidic: Lime or Lemon
iii. Spices: Tumeric, Ginger, Cayenne Pepper
iv. Root Vegetables: Cucumber, Carrots, Beetroot
v. Greens: Spinach, Celery, Kelp

Other forms of combinations are:

i. Sweet Fruits + Spices
ii. Sweet Fruits + Spices + Root Vegetables
iii. Root Vegetables + Sweet Fruits + Greens +  Acidic

The combinations of these varieties produce a really sweet and tasty juice. But you are advised to go ahead and try experimenting with your own chosen fruit and other ingredient combinations to see what you can come up with. There are no limits to how creative you can be with your recipes. Therefore, build a brand that people will recognize over time as a quality brand. don’t cut corners to make quick money.

Lucrative Fruit Juice Business

3. Use Preservatives

When fruit juice is freshly made and is meant for consumption immediately, one may not need to use preservatives. Fruit juice made in or for instant consumption at hotels, bars, fast food centers, shopping malls etc does not need to be preserved.
However, it is only for large quantity productions that will need to be kept for some time, that there will be need for preservatives to keep them in good condition.

Fruit juice normally should not contain a preservative, if processed and packaged properly. But, due to industrial and market wisdom, most fruit juices contain preservatives, even with proper processing and packaging. The essence of the preservatives is to give the fruit juice a longer shelf-life as long as its package is not opened.
The best natural fruit juice is one taken raw without any industrial processing or packaging.

For bananas, wrapping up the stem slows down the ripening process. Separating the unripe banana from the slightly ripe ones and also wrapping up the stem would preserve them for longer.

Apples should be kept cool for them to last longer.

4. Find a Better Location

Finding the fruits that aren’t readily available on the market, buying them in bulk, and reselling them is a great way to make a reasonable profit from juicing and fruits. The Ijora market of Lagos, Nigeria is a great place to find fresh fruits for people who live in Lagos. Or Bodija Market, Aleshinloye Market, etc are best locations to make supply.

Offices and Factories can be some strategic points of sales for the supply of fruit juice.

When looking for a location to start your business, you may have to consider your nearness to raw materials as well as your nearness to your target market. These two factors will go a long way in ensuring that your business runs smoothly.You would not want transportation in and out of the factory to eat eat deep into your start up fund.

Lucrative Fruit Juice Business

5. Choose a Profitable Customer Base and Expand your Income

Rather than trying to sell to individuals i.e Young adults and Adults, you may want to explore other customer segments that would be more profitable. See some examples below:

Children: Popsicles are a great way to package your menu such that it appeals to children. Partnering with schools to enable you to offer your products to the students during lunch or after school, would be a great way to start this off.

Hospitals/Health Centres: Partnership with health institutions is a great idea since people care about their health and care about what they’re putting into their bodies. People will be very willing to buy products that they’re assured will help them lead better and healthier lives. Products that they’re assured are beneficial to their body’s health.

This business strategy involves creating recipes that are required by people with specific health conditions or health goals as the case may be. For example; you could have clients who have health conditions that would require certain dietary needs for a period of time. You can design the menu to address these conditions and have a subscription pricing plan for the duration of the patients needs to recover.

6. Adopt the Right Price System

It is very important to get the unit economics for your business right from the beginning. Every ingredient in your recipe needs to add up to a price point without assumptions. Estimate the unit cost for the least measurement for all of the ingredients in your recipe.

Lucrative Fruit Juice Business

For example; the price of a scoop of watermelon can be estimated by counting the number of scoops that can be gotten from an entire watermelon and dividing the total cost of that watermelon by that number. After getting the unit costs of your ingredients, you should add your profit margin to get what the product will be priced. A healthy margin is from 50%, depending on other costs you may incur. Therefore the formula for pricing becomes;

Product Price = The Unit Cost of Production + Profit Margin

7. Acquire Good Products Taste and Look

It’s very important that your product packaging is of good quality. People are first attracted by what they see and when your customers see that your product is packaged right, they are more likely to make a purchase, and if it tastes good, they will return to your business. As regards photography and digital content, It is advisable that you take your photos in natural light.

Your social media pages are a great representation of the quality of your product, so it’s important to put in the effort in looking good after so much as been done to make your products taste good.

Some other general tips to keep your product taste and look include keeping away from direct sunlight and as much as possible keeping the optimal temperature of the fruit constant.

Lucrative Fruit Juice Business

8. Record your Sales and Drive Repeat Sales

With your business started and growing in sales, you would soon need to keep track of the numbers and ensure your customers keep coming back. As your customer base increases, you will also need to know each and every one of them and set up a system that allows you to nurture and manage the relationships for long-lasting loyalty.

We provide a solution that allows you to take care of your sales records, inventory, loyalty programs, e-invoice, e-receipt, accounting and payments right from your smartphone, tablet or computer; and if you sell online using social platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook or your own website, you can make use of the plugins and integration we provide to reach customers and sell to them where they are.

Fruit juice is the result of the extraction process which includes suspension of waters, sugars, acids, vitamins, proteins, and minerals. It surpasses the mere squeezing of fruits to extract the juice at home to include the complicated processes of fruits and additives mixing, preparation, bottling, preservation, and packaging.

As you grow your business, you can add healthy snack options to go with the juices so you can offer your customers a full meal whenever they choose to patronize your business. Customers generally like to get everything in one place.