Dangote Tomato Company to resume production on March 19

The Managing Director, Dangote Tomato Processing Company, Alhaji Abdulkarim Kaita, on Monday said the factory would resume production on Sunday, March 19.

Kaita disclosed this in an interview with Newsverge in Kano.

He said the company, located in Kadawa, Kano State, was expecting a team of engineers from Italy on Friday as part of preparation to resume production.

“As part of preparations to resume production on Sunday, we are expecting a team of engineers from Italy on Friday.

“The machines are under guarantee and we are not able to operate last year due to the scarcity of fresh tomato in Kano and other neighboring states,” he said.

Kaita said the engineers would assess the quality parameters as well as the installed capacity of the machines before they could finally hand them over to the company.

“Our engineers are ready to begin work and as soon as the other team of engineers arrive, we hope to resume operation on Sunday.”

He said the company had decided to resume production following availability of the commodity and the recent crash of its prices in the market.

“The price of the commodity has come down as a big basket, which was selling at N4,000, now cost between N1,200 and N1,400,” Kaita said.

Newsverge reports that the company had last year stopped production due to scarcity of fresh tomato as a result of pest that ravaged farms in Kano and other tomato producing states.

However, to ensure sufficient supply of the commodity, the company recently signed agreement with farmers in Gombe and Sokoto State on how to boost production of tomato for use in the factory.