CONSUMERS’ ACCEPTABILITY OF LOCAL RICE BRANDS IN NIGERIA. WHICH MARKETING FUNCTIONS REALLY MATTER?

Abstract

With an average annual import bill of USD 300 million,Nigeria is the Africa’s largest rice consuming and importingcountry. This has been attributed to the poor qualityof locally produced rice. Despite huge investments of overUSD 1.65 billion made by government and private sectorsin rice processing over the last six years – which has led todramatic improvements in the quality of local rice brands –the consumers’ preference for imported rice brands persists.Prioritizing the implementation of consumer demand-focuseddomestic marketing policies and programs could encouragethe consumers’ acceptability of local rice brands. Therefore,this study attempts to provide some insight, from the consumerperspective, on the local rice marketing managers’ need toimprove their functions. A binary logistic model was estimatedusing a 2014 dataset collected from a survey with 460 riceconsumer households in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT)of Nigeria. The results showed empirical evidence for the consumers’acceptability of local rice brands in Nigeria and theneed for improvements in marketing functions that enhancethe promotion and distribution of local rice brands. The implicationsof these findings for the development of Nigeria’s ricemarketing policy are discussed.