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Nigeria’s glass-making company Beta Glass is setting out this year to capture new grounds within Francophone Africa to extend its territory beyond West and Central Africa, where it is the largest producer of the glass containers used to package goods.
Beta Glass’ current reach, apart from its base Nigeria, where it runs two glass manufacturing plants, spans at least twelve export markets on the continent.
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Over the half a century for which it has operated in the country, it has Nigerian Breweries, AB InBev, Guinness Nigeria, and Nigerian Bottling Company, among the big names in its clientele.
Also, it has earned a reputation for itself as the maker of the bottles holding popular beverages like Sprite and Amstel Malta; alcoholic drinks like Heineken, Guinness Stout and Gulder; a wine like Veleta; a body cream like Venus and other iconic brands.
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But the hunger to scale and explore novel opportunities in new markets seems way stronger than ever before.
“The commercial team has been very active in looking at developing our growth strategy and expanding ourselves within Francophone and West Africa. That’s critical to our strategy for growth and very important, our sales of exports went from 6 per cent to 8 per cent of our turnover, year on year, which was a huge improvement,” Alexander Gendis, the chief executive, said during a media tour of its Agbara plant last Friday.
“What we’ve done also is looking first to our closest neighbours, a little bit further away, the whole continent, and then anywhere in the world. But first is Nigeria. First. Second is ECOWAS. Third is the whole continent.”
Mr Gendis, who took office only last October, wants exportation to pivot the expansion dream, with Nigeria and its neighbours as the company’s primary market and West Africa as its hub.
The company holds a 70-per cent share of the glass container market in the country.
50 years in Nigeria
The Nigerian unit of Greece-based Frigoglass SA, which manufactures commercial refrigeration units and packaging materials, has come a long way, starting off as Delta Glass Company LLC at the point of its incorporation in June 1974.
It went public 12 years later when it joined the Nigerian Stock Exchange (now Nigerian Exchange Limited) and listed its shares on the bourse, making them tradeable in the market.
Two plants have been at the heart of its operation for years: one at the Agbara industrial belt in Ogun State, the other at Ughelli in Delta State.
At the turn of the millennium in 2000, it transformed into a much bigger entity after a business combination of Delta Glass and Guinea Glass, and adopted its current name.
The company installed its second furnace at the Agbara plant in 2021, bucking up that facility’s output per day to 300 tonnes. Beta Glass runs three furnaces in all at the two plants, with a daily capacity of 720 tonnes.
It produces 650 million glass containers every year. Annual crate production capacity is at 5.5 million units while that of crown is at 3.2 billion units, based on its website data.
The Agbara and the Ughelli plants, where the crates are made, are driven by five ultramodern production lines.
In 2021, the glassware manufacturer spent €13 million on one furnace as well as on quality and technology upgrade to improve efficiency.
“We are seeing 90 per cent efficiency,” said Chief Operating Officer Jagdish Agarwal, alluding to technology as the pivot of growth.
The company said it invested N15.3 billion on expanding output capacity in the last five years.
Foreign exchange gain reached N1.8 billion in 2023, compared to last year when it incurred N1.1 billion in FX loss as a sweeping devaluation of the local currency adversely affected big manufacturers, even causing the bottom line of many multinationals to take a hit.
The company reported a 37.5 per cent jump in net profit that year regardless.
To curtail last year’s exchange loss, Mr Gendis said the company is embracing local input to substitute for raw material imports. In addition, Beta Glass is shopping for suppliers that will bring the raw materials from overseas themselves, then sell to it afterwards. That in a way will help deal with FX pressures on its finances.
Soda ash, one of the key components in its glass-making process, is shipped from China, Romania and Turkey. Sodium sulphate comes from Germany and iron chromite from South Africa.
Sustainability strides
“Commitment to innovation, sustainability and community development is at the heart of our operations,” Chief Commercial Officer Sharin Sweet said.
“As we move forward in 2025 we remain dedicated to excellence and making a positive impact on the communities and the markets that we serve,” she further noted.
The company is firming up its environmental responsibility credentials by forging innovative solutions to tackle greenhouse gas. It cuts carbon emissions by trapping a good deal of the heat it generates in the manufacturing process before it escapes from the chimneys for reuse in its industrial activity.
In 2023, the parent Frigoglass Group secured net zero targets from Science Based Targets Initiative, a corporate climate action organisation that validates companies commited to greenhouse gas emission reduction.
Beta Glass sources feldspar, which is used for lowering the temperature required to melt the components during glass making, from Ijero Ekiti. Agbara and its environs supply the sand the plant also uses in this process.
“If you change one degree of temperature, the outcome you get actually changes,” said Mr Agarwal, underscoring the level of fastidiousness the whole process takes.
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According to him, the quality assurance team uses the state-of-the-art American system to check for defective bottles during production.
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