Photo via Indomie Nigeria (Facebook)
WhenDaniel Adeyemi was living overseas, one food, more than any other, tasted like home: Indomie."In Nigeria, everyone seems to know about Indomie,"Adeyemi told VICEIndonesia. "I would assume that 60 to 80 percent of Nigerians have eaten Indomie before. A lot of people love the brand, and they also love the product, the noodleitself."The humble instant noodle is a giant in Nigeria, Africa's second-largest economy, where it controls74percent of the market. And that's actually a drop from 2006 when Indomie had a near monopoly of theinstant noodle market in Nigeria. It's soubiquitous that, for many Nigerians, all noodles are Indomie."Indomie is replacing the word 'noodle' [in Nigeria],"Adeyemi said.So how did Indomie take over dinner tables in Nigeria? The noodle's manufacturerPT Indofood Sukses Makmur partnered with the Nigerian food companyDufil Prima Foods back in the late 80s and opened the country's first instant noodle factory a few years later. Today, the company runs the largest instant noodle factory in Africa, pulling in more than $600 million USD a year as the eighth most-purchased brand in the world, according to a survey by the brandresearch firmKantar Worldpanel.
An Indomie Ramadan ad in Nigeria. Image via Facebook
When Indomie arrived in Nigeria, the instant noodle market was nonexistent. And unlike markets in Asia and the West, mostNigeriansweren't used to eating noodles, explainedTope Ashiwaju, the public relations and events manager, at Dufil Prima Foods."I can tell you that growing the business initially was very tough because it was totally strange as it wasn't part of our menu in Nigeria,"Ashiwaju told BrandSmart."We looked at it and said this is something we would want to compare favorable with the stable food like rice, beans, yam, bread."Nino Setiawan, an Indonesian citizen working in the imports-exports sectorin Nigeria, credits a man namedMohan Vaswani, the chairman of the Singapore-based Tolaram Group, with raising Indomie's popularity in Nigeria. The company partnered with Indofood owners, the Salim Group, to bring the instant noodles to Africa. Advertisem*nt
"It filled thespace in between a light snack and a solid meal,"Adeyemi said. "And let's not also forget the fantastic effort of the media agencies handling the brand who, in my own honest opinion,positioned the brand so well that you have no choice butto love it. Some of their campaign songs and print adswere quite memorable."The commercialswere so popular that most Nigerians hadzero idea that Indomie (a portmanteau of "Indonesia" and "mie" or"noodles") had anything to do with Indonesia. A short documentary on Indomie's success in Nigeria doesn't even mention Indonesia, and instead links the instant noodles to Singapore.It's a common mistake.Indonesian Trade MinisterEnggartiasto Lukita said that most Nigerians nowthink of Indomie as a local product."In Nigeria, there are 10 Indomie factories," he told local media. "So they claim Indomie came from Africa."Adeyemi believes that the company may have purposely distanced itself from Indonesia in the early days to avoid any negative political sentiment about a foreign brand controlling such a large share of the market. But he doubts that anyone would care today, he said."I think a whole lot of Nigerians don't know Indomie has a connection with Indonesia,"Adeyemi told VICEIndonesia. "I think theydon't even care. Nigerians just want to have something good and tasty. To them, everything else is secondary."
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