Description

Sweet potato is tropical herbaceous plant which, by the nature of its temperature requirement, can be grown throughout Nigeria. States like Kaduna, Kano, Zamfara, and Sokoto in the North-west are currently leading in its production in the country.

Potatoes, the world’s 4th most popular food crop, after maize, wheat, and rice, is a widely consumed meal in every country. In Nigeria, it is consumed in over 500,000 households weekly. This highly nutritional crop belongs to the kingdom Plantae, the genus Solanum and is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial nightshade Solanum Tuberosum.

The explosive demand for their supply is largely triggered not just by their tasty nature, but by the highly nutritious value they contain. Depending on whether it is the sweet potato or the irish potato, a medium-sized potato gives an extremely low 110 calories, contains zero amounts of cholesterol, fat, sodium, and are rich in Vitamin C, Potassium, iron, Vitamin B6, and fibre.

Nigeria, a country blessed with diverse climatic and soil condition for the production of different agricultural produce, is the leading producer of potato in Sub-Saharan Africa, producing about 3,460,000 metric tons of sweet potatoes – a starchy, tuberous crop, which refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber, annually.

Sweet potato is traditionally consumed in boiled form with varying accompaniments including cowpea, rice, millet and benniseed. In the semi-arid zone, sweet potato flour is popularly used for sweetening local foods while in the urban markets of the humid south, sweet potato fried chips are produced and marketed.

Potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family. The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. Sweet potato is produced is almost all the states of the federation.
Sweet potato made into flour, has a high potential for success, as it can be used to replace the expensive wheat flour in baking and confectioneries. Sweet Potato Flour is incredibly versatile and can be used for baked goods, such as breads, cookies, muffins, pancakes and crepes, cakes, and doughnuts.

It can also be used in soups, as a thickener for sauces and gravies, and in breading for fish and as well as a stabilizer in the ice-cream industry. It is a raw flour and does not require cooking before use. Sweet potato flour is great at holding moisture in baked goods. Sweet potato flour can add natural sweetness, color, and flavour to processed food products.

This report examines the financial viability of establishing a potato flour processing plant in Nigeria.

The major and biggest users of flour are the bakeries. Based on research evidence, this sector consumes an average of 331,460 kilograms of flour per month. At present, bakery products (bread, cookies, cakes, and pastries) produced by the commercial sector are made from wheat, and sometimes substitution with cassava flour. Sweet Potato flour can be marketed as a low-cost alternative for imported wheat flour, especially for snack food and noodle producers.

The demand for the product is quite enormous and very high in Nigeria. The raw material (Sweet Potato) is also readily available. The production technology is simple and the equipment’s are locally fabricated.

The proposed production volume is three (3) tons/day at 100% capacity utilization and the plant would operate at 80% of the installed capacity for a single shift of eight (8) hours per day for three hundred (300) working days per annum.