INVESTIGATION: Milk or Mimic: Nigeria’s diary market, a hub for inferior EU product

The Nigerian dairy market is dominated by fat-filled milk powder (FFMP), which is produced by blending skimmed milk powder with vegetable fat after removing the original milk fat.

In supermarkets, the products are neatly arranged on shelves. They are also sold in large, open market spaces throughout the country. In the city suburbs, they are sold in makeshift grocery shops by the roadside and hawked by street vendors at dawn as condiments for tea, making them a staple for many homes.

What is unknown to the vast section of Nigerian consumers is that in Europe, where most of these products are manufactured, they are not classified as milk.

A collaborative investigation by PREMIUM TIMES and Noteworthy, an Irish news outlet, showed that for years, West Africa has been a commercial hub for cheap milk substitutes from the EU. We found continuous export of FFMP from Ireland into the region, with Nigeria as one of its largest markets.

This investigation has also shown that the fat-filled powder is advertised and sold as milk to unsuspecting Nigerians who cannot decipher real milk from what is simply an imitation of it.

PREMIUM TIMES also found widespread misinformation about FFMP among traders of dairy products in major markets across the country, particularly in Abuja, Enugu, Kano and Lagos states where we surveyed.

One such Nigerian is Chisom Odirichukwu, 35, who is shocked to learn and unwilling to accept that the sachets of milk powder in his store at Wuse Market, Abuja, are not milk.

Based on his years of owning a shop mainly for dairy products, he is certain that the difference between FFMP and other kinds of powder, such as whole milk, hinges on taste, not quality.

Some of his customers prefer whole cream milk, while some would always request fat-filled milk products, he said, pointing at the packs of Milksi and Kerrygold lined on one part of the shelf in the store.

Misinformation on fat-filled powder

Two Irish products – Milksi and Kerrygold Avantage – are among the most common FFMP products sold in supermarkets, malls, and open markets in Nigeria.

At Wuse Market, one of Abuja’s largest markets, they are stacked on the shelves in many grocery stores and are regarded by traders as among the most accepted products. They are quick to leave the shelves because they are in high demand and are consumed by people of every age group, excluding infants.

Wuse market in Abuja, Nigeria.

Other widely consumed FFMPs are Dano, Cowbell, and Three Crown. But they are not Irish products.

PREMIUM TIMES observed that FFMP sold in Nigeria is labelled as “Instant-filled milk powder,” WMP is labelled as “full cream powder,” and Skimmed Milk Powder is labelled as “skimmed milk powder.”

Mr Odirichukwu said that people who say FFMP is not real milk know nothing about dairy products.

“It is best for people trying to stop weight gain,” he said as he reached for a rag to dust out dirt on some of the milk packs.

“It just depends on preference,” he insisted.

Interviews with many traders, wholesalers and retailers across the country revealed that FFMP is considered to be good for weight loss and a healthy lifestyle. With a prevalence of 27.6 per cent among women and 14.5 per cent among men, obesity is a concern for a significant number of Nigeria’s population. Dairy traders who spoke to PREMIUM TIMES said this is partly why FFMP is always in high demand aside from its cost.

This belief is predicated on the notion that FFMP, unlike Whole Milk Powder (WMP), has zero fat content.

Some others said FFMP was originally meant for children but became accepted and consumed by adults as the cost of dairy products skyrocketed due to the country’s inflation.

But the fat content claim is not true.

The Codex Standard for Milk Powder and Cream Powder, states that whole milk contains a minimum of 26 per cent of milk fat. Similarly, FFMP in Nigeria contains at least 28 per cent of vegetable fat sourced from palm oil or coconut oil.

There is currently no conclusive body of research specifically dedicated to the long-term health impacts of fat-filled powder but researchers on the global stage have argued that the consistent intake of FFMP could trigger obesity.

Graham O’Neil, a lecturer at Technological University in Dublin, told Noteworthy that FFMP could potentially contribute to higher cholesterol levels and can increase the risk of heart disease when consumed at high volume.

“The impact can also manifest itself in terms of increased weight, blood pressure, or cardiovascular issues,” he said.

Why FFMP is not milk

The EU Common Market Organizations‘ (CMO) regulation defines milk as the white liquid produced by mammals, typically cows, and collected during the milking process. It dictates that milk should be pure, with nothing added or extracted.

In Ireland and other EU countries, where the dairy sector is developed and production corresponds adequately with demand, fresh milk is consumed.

However, the majority of Nigerian consumers have never had a glass of fresh milk. Most of the milk consumed by Nigerians is imported.

Usually, fresh milk is pasteurised and spray-dried into powder before export to allow for a longer shelf life. Hence, what is available is powdered or liquid milk reconstituted from imported powdered milk.

The EU regulation recognises certain kinds of powdered milk, including the WMP, because they contain all the original nutrients in fresh milk. Skimmed milk, which contains all the nutrients but with reduced milk fat, is also included.

However, FFMP, the product that dominates the Nigerian market space, is not classified as milk as it violates the CMO regulation, which prohibits the extraction of raw milk nutrients. In FFMP, the milk fat, an essential content of milk, has been completely extracted and replaced with vegetable oil.

The EU Commission Press Officer for Agriculture spokesperson services, Thérèse Lerebours, told PREMIUM TIMES that FFMP is referred to as fat-filled powder in the EU, excluding the ‘M’, because it lacks the essential milk compositions and as such cannot be described as one.

“We refer to them as FFP (Fat Filled Powders), without including the ‘M’ in the middle (or the word ‘milk’),” Lerebours said.

Unlike in Nigeria, FFMP in Ireland is sold only to business owners for the production of food items such as Yogurt and ice cream.

For this investigation, we examined the nutritional information on FFMP as listed on their packs, compared them to whole milk, and found that FFMP contained less protein. For instance, the label on a 320g Milksi states that the powder contains 10 grammes of protein per 100 grammes of powder. On the other hand, a Peak milk pack of the same quantity, which is WMP, was labelled to contain 28g of protein per 100g of powder.

Milksi label showing its nutritional value.

To make cheaper products, expensive ingredients like protein and fat are replaced with cheaper ones in the food industry, said Abimbola Olaniyan, a food scientist and lecturer at Landmark University, Omu Aran, Kwara State in Nigeria.

She told us that even within the country, food producers often replace expensive ingredients with cheaper ones like sugar.

Nigeria’s dependence on import

The local dairy industry is highly underdeveloped and underfunded, a sharp contrast to what occurs in the EU, where dairy farmers and companies are supported and subsidised through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Even local dairy companies rely on imported powdered milk. They either import and repackage powdered milk or reconstitute imported powdered milk into liquid milk.

Most of the dairy multinational companies with a huge presence in Nigeria are from Europe. Denmark, Netherlands, New Zealand, and Ireland are some of the top exporters to Nigeria.

CAP was developed in Brussels. In its early years, the goal was to ensure food security and a stable agricultural market; then, it evolved to help European agriculture compete globally.

Kerrygold and Milksi in small pouches lined on a shelf.

However, long-standing accusations exist that poor countries are paying the price for the policy.

According to research by a confederation of 21 non-profits in the EU, the aid provided allowed producers to export their surplus outside the EU at prices below the cost of production, making it difficult for local producers in developing countries like Nigeria to compete.

This, combined with low milk yield from the indigenous cows, poor funding, and many other challenges, continues to limit local production.

Nigeria relies heavily on milk imports, which cost $1.5 billion per annum, to meet its 1.45 billion litres of domestic demand.

Local farmers produce around 530,000 tonnes of raw milk, a far cry from Ireland’s production of about eight to nine million tonnes. The country is an important contributor to EU milk production, producing 94 times more milk than Nigeria.

Local production has remained low in Nigeria despite multiple government initiatives in the dairy sector.

“The major issue is the neglect of the sector. We have enough cows to meet the milk demand but the government is unwilling to maximise the resources,” Muhammadu Abubakar, the president of the Commercial Dairy Ranchers Association of Nigeria (CODARAN), said.

Nigeria has the fifth largest cattle population in Africa, following Ethiopia, Sudan, Chad, and Tanzania. But Lai Solarin, the director of Animal Husbandry at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, said the indigenous cattle breeds cannot produce enough milk to meet demand.

She said out of 10 breeds, only two are for milk production. These two are called Sokoto Gudali and White Fulani.

Under the best conditions, she said, they can only produce five litres of milk per day. “This is very low when compared to breeds in other countries that can produce 40 to 50 litres.”

FFMP importation

For this investigation, PREMIUM TIMES and Noteworthy examined export data from Ireland to Nigeria obtained from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) of Ireland.

We found that Nigeria has been a big market for FFMP from the EU country. Overall, FFMP, valued at hundreds of billions of Naira, was exported to Nigeria from Ireland within four years.

Official data showed that Ireland exported fat-filled powder valued at N686 billion to Nigeria between 2020 and 2023. The export to Nigeria in the first quarter of 2024 alone was worth N25 billion.

This raised the sum of powder exported to Nigeria to N712 billion. We found that export value rose from N115 billion in 2020 to more than N200 billion in 2021 and 2022. It, however, fell to N81 billion in 2023.

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The CODORAN executive director, Dianabasi Akpainyang, told PREMIUM TIMES that the fall in 2023 is partly due to the increased inflation and economic crisis that hit the country following the introduction of the twin policies — fuel subsidy removal and the unification of the exchange rates.

Our investigation also revealed that Irish dairy producers have a strong market presence not only in Nigeria but across the West African region.

We found that Irish dairy producers exported FFMP to 16 West African countries. Large quantities were exported to Senegal, Ghana, Benin, Togo, Cote d’Ivoire, and many others.

Export to the region more than doubled within the last three years, rising from N447 billion in 2020 to N977 billion in 2023. Between 2020 and the first quarter of 2024, the Irish total FFMP export into the region is worth N2 trillion.

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There is no data on the consumption of fat-filled powder in West Africa.

The Landmark University lecturer, Mrs Olaniyan, linked the large export to Nigeria to the large population and the high demand for cheap products.

A consumer buying Milksi in Enugu.

She also attributed it to the country’s dairy product regulation, which permits the importation and free sale of FFMP to any willing buyer.

A survey of FFMP market prices

According to Euromonitor, a global business intelligence provider, Kerrygold is among the top five brands leading milk powder sales in Nigeria.

A research consultant with Euromonitor, Anje Du Plessis, said Kerrygold follows FrieslandCampina, which is the leading brand, followed by Promasidor Nigeria and Nestle Nigeria.

Kerrygold Avantage is produced by Ornua Limited, a multinational dairy company in Ireland. Milksi was initially produced by an Irish food scientist, Mark Cribbin. However, both products are packaged and distributed by their Nigerian subsidiaries.

PREMIUM TIMES reviewed the market price of Kerrygold and Milksi fat-filled powder compared to the average cost of whole milk in Nigeria.

For this review, we visited supermarkets and major market spaces in Abuja, Enugu, Kano and Lagos.

We found that FFMP is sold at much cheaper prices.

A 32kg pouch of whole milk powder is sold at prices ranging from N200 to N250, while Milksi is sold at N80 to N100. A 320-350g pouch of WMP is N1000-N2000 higher than the cost of fat-filled powder.

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At a shopping mall in Abuja, an 800g pouch of whole milk is sold for N8,500 while Kerrygold Avantage powder of the same quantity costs N6300. Also, a 900g pouch of WMP costs at least N11,000 while FFMP is about N8000 – N9000

Some other brands of FFMP are sold at a lower price.

In Nigeria, Kerrygold is packaged by Eagles Industries International Concept, a packaging plant for Kerrygold established by Fareast Mercantile Co. Limited in partnership with Ornua, our investigation showed.

Milksi is imported and packaged by Promasidor Nigeria, a South Africa-based Promasidor Holdings subsidiary.

During this investigation, PREMIUM TIMES wrote to the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), requesting data on the quantity of FFMP shipped directly to these companies. However, the agency has yet to respond to this request.

PREMIUM TIMES also contacted Promasidor Nigeria Limited and Fareast Mercantile Co. Limited, the importers of Kerrygold Avantage and Milksi.

Our reporter called all the contacts listed on their websites and emailed both companies. However, as of the time of this report, neither company had responded.

A local shop in the suburbs of Abuja.

NAFDAC regulation

Nigeria’s food regulator, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), said its regulation prohibits the advertisement of FFMP as a product in the same category as WMP and skimmed milk.

The NAFDAC DG, Moji Adeyeye, told PREMIUM TIMES that FFMP is not considered milk but as milk alternatives or milk products.

“FFMP products are not categorised as milk in the same way as whole milk powder or skimmed milk powder,” she said.

However, our investigation found no FFMP pouch or tin labelled as milk alternatives or milk products. They were labelled milk.

With the poor implementation of regulations, widespread consumption would persist and at the detriment of local dairy farmers who seek to produce fresh milk at large but lack funding and aid for this.

Farmers who spoke to PREMIUM TIMES said the imports of cheaper milk powder into the region would continue to hamper local production.

According to Daniyan Abimbola, the CEO of Abimbola Dairy Farms Integrated, the cost of dairy farming in Nigeria does not correspond to profit, which continues to discourage people from doing it.

“Local producers cannot compete with multinational companies in the dairy industry and the profit margin is wide. This is why some dairy farms are forced to shut down less than five years after they are established,” said Mr Abimbola.

But he keeps faith, he said. He hopes that the National Dairy Policy adopted in 2014 will change the industry under the new Ministry of Livestock Development to be established by the Nigerian President, Bola Tinubu.

This investigation includes reporting by Suhasini Srinivasaragavan, working with editor Maria Delaney of Noteworthy in Ireland, our investigative partner for this project. Read their report here >>