Barut Tissue goes out of business in Nigeria in 2023 due to the harsh economy. Barut Tissue company was into the production of toilet papers, and was one of the top companies in that field in Nigeria. They made good sales and had good market share before 2015 when the country witnessed harsh economic realities.
In this report given by Chukwudi Iwuchukwu on his Facebook page, he recounts how this company folded up.
Barut Tissue goes out of Business in Nigeria in 2023 due to Harsh Economy
Before the company went out of business, Barut Tissue was the second-largest manufacturer of tissue paper in Nigeria after Boulous.
They had these popular products on the market: Vicki tissue, Prince toilet roll, Vicki kitchen roll, Vivian serviette, and Ruth Supreme toilet roll.
It was a family business owned by the Ataiyero family.
Bola Adefila, the family’s first daughter, founded the now-defunct company in 2008 after receiving her initial seed money from her father, who is a retired Road Safety official.
The business grew from those humble beginnings to become the second-largest manufacturer of toilet and servettie papers, with its products scattered all over the country and other neighboring ECOWAS country.
Business was good until Buhari’s government came in in 2015.
The first impact of electing Buhari on the business is that the company had to stop importing raw materials from China, which was cheaper than buying the raw materials from here, as a result of the 2015–2016 foreign exchange shortage.
As if this were not enough, the company had to contend with several factors, like the insecurity that got worse, but the biggest elephant in the room was the high cost of diesel, which made the pricing of their products uncompetitive.
The company’s factory was in Abuja.
Before 2015, they used to distribute their products all over the country from Abuja, and it made business sense as the cost of production and logistics was low.
In 2015, it cost less than 100,000 to haul tissue paper to Lagos from Abuja.
In 2022, the company was spending 1 million naira to do the same thing, and there is a limit to how much they can pass that cost on to customers.
So that was how Barut died a painful death.
The company’s machines and carcasses were sold to Bolous Tissue, owned by the popular Lebanese family of Michael Bolous.
Bolous, which is the number one tissue manufacturer, now uses their facility in Abuja to convert tissue paper and then send it to their markets in the north instead of sending it all over the country as the former owners were doing.
That way, they keep their costs down.
Before the business died last year, I watched the founder, Bola, speak several times glowing about the family business that she runs.
She has dreams and wants Barut to be handed over to the next generation of her family.
She was an incurable optimist who believed in the potential and possibilities of Nigeria.
Her younger three siblings, Japa, but she chose to stay and make something out of nothing.
She was fond of saying this:
“Regardless of the circumstances of the Nigerian state, we should all play our part and be diligent with what God has placed in our hands. God planted us here and made us Nigerians for a reason, so get up! Dress up! and show up!”
But all that is now a distant memory, as Barut has joined the list of businesses and manufacturing companies that died because Buhari happened to us.
In her quiet moment, I know she would be wondering whether it was worth it.
Another business has biten the dust with the attendant unemployment loses.
Conclusion
Thus, having read this, you would get to discover that Barut Tissue goes out of business in Nigeria in 2023 due to the harsh economy. The company is one out of thousands of companies which have folded due to a bad economy. Nigeria continue to suffer the harshness of the economy.
Source: Chukwudi Iwuchukwu