By Funmi Ajumobi

Mira Mehta is the founder and CEO at Tomato Jos, a multi-million dollar tomato processing facility in northern Nigeria.
As an experienced executive in the agribusiness and consumer packaged goods sectors with a proven track record of effectively leading people and building teams, in this interview spoke extensively on the great opportunities in various crops, which can be value enhanced for exportation; how Tomato Jos has improved thousands of women farmers in Kaduna and how she loves her product to be a household name, among others.

Why choose Tomato Jos and the difference between the name and the location. 
Why I chose Tomato Jos and why the name is different from my location is for three reasons. One is from the branding perspective.

We wanted to make sure that Nigerian consumers know that this is a Nigerian product and not something that is coming from outside.

Other brands want to sound Italian, American, but we wanted to say that we are proudly made in Nigeria for Nigerian consumers.

Second, if you go to the market like Mile12 in Lagos or to any of these big tomato markets, you find out that the highest quality tomato is called Tomato Jos because they are very sweet. So we said to ourselves that this is an indication of quality. 

The third reason, my Tomato Jos is too sweet and so fresh. The sachet also has a woman on the cover. It represents a little sort of fun in our branding.  

What does investing millions of naira in agriculture in Nigeria mean to you, what are the risk factors and how have you overcome or minimized the risks?
There is a lot of risk in any startup. They said over 50% of entrepreneurs have that feeling. So, if you place it in that part of the country that usually has bad reputation in terms of security and we are part of the country where there is very little infrastructure by way of electricity, roads and others.

From my perspective, one thing we have always done to mitigate risk is to involve the community in what we are doing, and to make sure this is not just me doing it alone but we are a team of over a hundred people who are working with Tomato Jos  and over a thousand farmers that we are partnering with.

So why did you choose Nigeria. Are you a Nigerian?
No. I’m not a Nigerian. Probably, I need to apply for my green passport by now. I moved to Nigeria in 2008 to work for a non-profit, and I lived in Abuja for four years. I really felt that this is a country that has many opportunities.

I had the idea of Tomatoe Jos all the way back in 2009, but it wasn’t until 2014 that I decided to pursue it as a full-time business. 

The agric sector has received a boost in the last few years, yet food has become incredibly unaffordable.  What is the reason for this?
There has been some great intervention, and Tomato Jos has been a beneficiary of some of the loans from the Central Bank of Nigeria.

They have been trying to push a lot of financing into the Agric sector.
The challenge is just that there are so many of the small details that you don’t necessarily think about. At the macro scales, you can be trying to get intervention, but there are more challenges where things come out the way we don’t really want them to be.

For example, a farmer may not have access to irrigation. Even if you are providing subsidized fertilizers or you are enabling farmers through entrepreneur programmes to access loans, if they don’t have some of the basic infrastructure in place. then it still won’t succeed.

Essential services in Nigeria have their ups and downs, but we have found out that the partner farmers that we work with in the community where we are in Kaduna, don’t have a lot of formal education. So not only is our essential team training them on technical elements, but we are also teaching them on how to be profitable.

You may find that there are loans being issued, but the people that are actually growing the food are not able to make a meaningful change in the way that they are growing the food.

In other countries in the world where farming is a profitable business and where farming is a major driver of GDP growth, there are basic infrastructure in place.

There are roads, power and telecommunication infrastructure in place. These are not yet developed in a lot of parts of Nigeria that grow food. I just feel that there are a lot happening at the high level, but not at the level of small-scale farmers.

What do you think is the solution to all these?
I think there are a lot of policy decisions in place to try and make those changes
It’s ABCs. If you don’t have good roads in the country, you will still have a problem with haulage.

Tomatoes grown in those parts cannot reach the southern markets because those roads are breaking down. We have sludge last year.That had a lot of impact on people who wanted to move perishable goods.

To me, I’m always an advocate of basic infrastructure. Put roads in place, let there be power; let there be the basics in place. That is the foundation for a successful intervention.

What makes Tomato Jos different from others in the market?
What makes Tomato Jos different is that we are producing directly into the sachet. So, the tomatoes come out from the farm, the farmers deliver into our factory, and within 24 hours, it has been packaged inside the sachet.

A lot of other products in the market are either using imported products or they are having a lot of time before the product is packed into the sachet. 

The first flavour is something that sets us apart, and the  taste of the product also differentiates our product, and we are really proud of it.

Beyond fertilisers, preservatives are a leading cause of chronic diseases. how do you plan to deal with this?
I will start with what we do at the farm and the factory.  On the farm, the farmers that we are working with actually have over 200 behaviours that we are trying to change between what they do normally when they are farming and what they do when they are farming for Tomato Jos.

We also do a lot of training on maintaining clean farms. Plants are like people whereby you have to ensure the plants are well fed and well hydrated. There is this natural immunity when you are well fed.

We have inter-personal management to make sure our tomatoes come out without diseases and without blemishes.  Coming to the factory, we ensure we are cleaning things well, ensuring the pipes are good, and making sure we maintain good hygiene in the factory and maintain a proper process.

Lots of tomatoes spoil quickly. Many say it’s the use of too much fertiliser. It is also believed that many diseases out there, are gotten from the consumption of such products. In your own farm and partner farmers, how do you ensure the right application of fertilisers and preservatives?
It’s true that many farmers apply fertilisers anyhow. It can land on the fruits and it can land on the plant.
We train our partners on how to dig trenches where they apply the fertilisers and then cover it.

So our fertilisers only target the roots of the plant where it will be absorbed but will not touch the fruits.It is a safer and faster process.

When the tomato comes to the factory, the first thing we do is to take it to a washing station where any dirt or residue is washed off before entering inside the factory and then packed inside a sachet.

So, there are processes, and these processes are regulated by NAFDAC. We ensure everything that is going for consumption is very clean, and there are no residues of any sort. We are producing a very natural product and  we take a lot of pride in our quality.

I also like to add that 60% of farmers in our program are actually women. We tilt towards empowering women at Tomato Jos. Women participate in agriculture a lot, but they don’t actually get to enjoy the profit of the product. 

Sometimes the women are working for their husbands or their fathers. What we do is that we target women, and we give them allocations of land so they can also enjoy the profits from the farm and not the labour of the farm.

How can the tomato value chain be further exploited to benefit more women? Have Agric cooperatives lived up to their billing?
Having in the past, worked with cooperators, we haven’t really been able to get what they said they can do. We found out that the cooperative will say they have 5000 farmers, but at the end of the day, you don’t get back much tomatoes coming back.

Now we have like a baseline of partner farmers that are not in association, but they work directly with the company, sign contract with the company directly and farm for the company. Now that we have a baseline of trusted farmers that we know are going to deliver for us, we have started to work with the associations.

We are now working with Tomato Farmers Association of Nigeria. We cannot also rely on them solely because sometimes they don’t bring the needed tons to us. We use the women farmers that we have to supply the remaining tons.

Apart from tomatoes, what other crops can be value enhanced that way?
I actually think there is a potential in onion. Obviously, ginger is a big one for Nigeria. There are opportunities in mango, pineapples, and avocado.