By Foster Obi
Flour Mills of Nigeria (FMN) on Monday gave out 16 new trucks to its key but lucky distributors in its food segment in a strategic move to motivate and enable them grow their businesses by reaching out for wider market share. The gesture according to FMN is in tandem with its promise earlier in the year to reward the efforts of its partners by appreciating and celebrating them.
According to Paul Gbededo, Group Managing Director, Flour Mills of Nigeria, recognising the efforts of distributors means that the company is helping to boost the businesses of its partners, dealers and customers, so that they can grow, adding, “Once they grow, you can be sure FMN will continue to grow.
“ FMN is fulfilling a promise it made to various categories of customers earlier in the year that it would provide them with vans to support their businesses to enable them take goods from its factories to their warehouses and from warehouses to the retailers.
“This is just the start. In years to come, we are going to be doing it in tranches so that we will be seen to be feeding the nation every day,” he noted.
Devlin Hainsworth, Managing Director, Foods, said, “Two, three months ago, we gathered our biggest partners and customers to really acknowledge their performance through the year and a particular category that took the most in terms of performance and driving the overall food business in terms of Golden Penny or FMN, we award them with trucks.”
He maintained that FMN was serious about partnership with customers and that the company had achieved a lot from this. “We have reached the level in terms of market share and size. We are really creating number one brands in the key categories and still have the opportunity to go to another level. In striving for more and more, let’s go to the next level. There are so many consumers from length and breadth of the country and it is important we reach them,” he declared.
While addressing its distributors, Hainsworth said the company would continue to show them how much it valued them by constantly supporting their businesses. “The real action is in the market, not in the glass house. We know it is not easy out there. We know you have so many things to contend with. Together, we will continue to feed the nation every day and grow your business. You have helped build FMN and we are excited about our future.”
Paul Udochi, head of sales, B2B, said the company was convinced that empowering its customers meant empowering itself, saying that FMN intended to make this an annual event. Udochi said it would eventually affect all sections in FMN, though each always had one way or the other of rewarding customers. One of the customers from South-West region, Elizabeth Olufunmilayo Ajibola of Mt Olives Nigeria Limited, said the gesture proved that FMN was customer oriented.
Ejide Ayinde, who represented the North-West region, said the van would enable him to access communities that were hitherto difficult. “I am happy. I wish to extend my gratitude to Flour Mills of Nigeria. This will help us in distribution and to access communities that we have never accessed,” Ayinde, who came from Abuja, said.
Also Dosunmu Funmilayo of Michelle Edmund Ventures Limited said it was an indication that FMN was a good company and cared about its partners.“It is an indication that Flour Mills keeps to its promises. The van will help us to get to certain places we need to be. It will help us in distributing the products,” he affirmed.
Pix: The trucks diplayed at FMN glass house Apapa, Lagos before distributors took delivery
