By  Naomi Uzor
The Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC) yesterday disclosed that it achieved a 13 per cent growth in turnover, as the company grew from N80.1 billion to N90.2 billion between 2008 and 2009.

In his statement at the 2009 annual report/ financial statements, Chairman of NBC, Amb Olusegun Apata said despite a challenging business environment imposed by the global recession and the Benin plant fire incident of December 2008, the company achieved a 13 per cent growth with a turnover of N90.2b.

According to the Chairman, the company grew from N80.1 billion to N90.2 billion and profit before taxation and extraordinary items grew from N2.44b to N4.33b.

“We experience high input costs in 2009 mainly from an increase in the price of sugar, a major input in our production process which went up by more than 16 per cent compared with 2008. Cost of diesel (AGO) which we use for power generation in all our 13 plants and depots, and prices for packaging materials especially for one way packs also went up” he stated.

He said in 2009, the company’s supply chain continued in its effort to further upgrade production facilities and improve product and package quality as the juice packaging was changed from brick to prisma which in turn boosted the sales volume in this segment of the market and positively affected the market share, adding that the supply chain also played an important role in rebuilding the Benin plant and facilitated the installation of a new ultra glass line at the Ikeja plant.

Apata disclosed that the new juice line which is under construction at the Ikeja plant will further boost the company’s market share and profit at completion and that the company continued investing on staff during the year through various local and overseas training.