The World Packaging Organisation (WPO) has listed Nigeria’s Sona Group of Industries for its “Packaging that Saves Food” award.
Sona’s Group Managing Director, Mr Ajai Musaddi, said the firm will receive the award in Australia on May 2.
According to Musaddi, the firm got the award for its “five-layer blown film vegetable oil wrapper with high barrier polyamide film from Shongai Technologies.”
He spoke at the Nigeria PlastPrintPack 2018 where Sona was represented by three of its subsidiary companies: Shongai Technologies Ltd, Shongai Packaging Industries Ltd and Techblow Nigeria Ltd.
Musaddi said: “The film is five-layer blown film which is the first of its kind in West Africa and we are the only player as of now providing this while other players are still providing only 3-layer film.
“Our effort in the direction has been recognised on a global platform by the World Packaging Organization (WPO) and we will be receiving the award on May 2, 2018 in Australia. We will be felicitated under the category of “Packaging that Saves Food”
According to him, the award reinforces the firm’s belief that Nigeria is gradually being recognised as the next global manufacturing hub.
He added: “This is coupled with increased popularity of plastics packaging over glass especially in pharmaceutical and FMCG industries.
“Packaged foods such as biscuits, meat pie, chinchin, plantain chips, groundnuts, cashew nuts, etc have seen increased demand following the 40 percent growth of organised retail outlets in the last five years.
“Lastly, most ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) countries depend on Nigeria for their plastic needs.
Musaddi stated that the fair provided the firm the opportunity to relate with consumers and other industry stakeholders who are trying to improve on the packaging of their food products.
“Our motto ‘World-class quality products at affordable price’ is what we wanted every person who came in contact with us to take back home.
“We have facilities providing state of the art products from labels, laminates, monocartons, to table, chair, buckets, containers from 0.5 Litres (Lt) to 50Lt, and drums upto 250Lts to count a few.”
He added: “We are one of the biggest suppliers of pallets to a lot of food and beverages companies. By providing high quality pallets we are creating a win-win situation for everyone around us. It starts with protecting the nature in two ways: we prevent chopping down of trees to make wood pallets, and at the same time we re-use the plastic that is generally thrown away as garbage in our environment.”