‘Ponmo’, Naira and Power
Food is art and we must be creative about it!
The thought of eating what technically should be your leather isn’t quite what you would imagine doing, or better yet making money from, yet Nigeria, and particularly Lagos, is proving otherwise. During the DFID-funded Growth and Employment in States, Meat and Leather programme (GEMS 1) in Nigeria, a market access intervention was piloted at Oko Oba abattoir in Lagos to facilitate the efficient supply of Ponmo from Oko Oba to various market points in Lagos. The programme hoped that Ponmo from Oko-Oba abattoir would start to arrive at its market points in good time and in increased quantities, thereby improving the incomes of the women involved in its production, crowding-in the private sector and triggering further market efficiencies.
Why the fuss about Ponmo?
Ponmo is a very popular Nigerian delicacy of apparently no nutritious value. It is prepared through dipping fresh cow skin (right after slaughter of the cow) in boiling hot water before scraping off the hair on the skin to produce what is called ‘white Ponmo’. White Ponmo can be further processed into what is called ‘brown Ponmo’, which is produced by roasting the white Ponmo. Once prepared, the Ponmo is then sold in rolls of fresh or roasted Ponmo to restaurants, informal food stalls, hotels and supermarkets.
There appears to be no research at present in Nigeria to support claims that the bovine Type III collagen, a joint strengthening and skin curing protein, can be extracted from boiled cow skin to be used either in powder or liquid form for cosmetic and medical purposes. Infact, an online article in Nigeria quotes a respected scientist, Dr Isuwa Adamu, Director General of the Nigerian Institute of Leather Science and Technology (NILEST) saying that “Ponmo” consumption is dangerous to your health due to the poor treatment of cow skin diseases in Nigeria. The lack of research combined with competing, somewhat mythical, beliefs about Ponmo have helped ensure that Ponmo remains a grey area of very little interest in nutritional and, if at all, business circles in Nigeria.
In an article written for BBC Africa (Nigeria eats its shoe leather) Sam Olukoya writes that historically the market for Ponmo in Lagos emerged as a meal substitute for beef which had proven too expensive for poorer consumers to afford. He notes a Ponmo seller’s account of this situation… “Many people can no longer afford to buy beef because it is expensive. They have now resorted to eating cow skin. If beef was cheap, nobody would eat cow skin”. It is clear from this statement that one of the key influences that has led to the growth of the Ponmo market is the essential need for it, suggesting a high demand and potentially high returns due to its sheer size.
Good for butchers, good for producers
An interview with Harmony Abattoir Management Services Limited during a GEMS 1 and Farms to Market Synergies Limited Abuja study for the Lagos State Government (LASG) in 2013 revealed that cow skins fresh from cow slaughter at Oko Oba abattoir in Lagos were sold by the butchers to the Ponmo women at a price range of £60.00 to £80.00 per skin. At the time of the study, the abattoir slaughtered an average of 1,000 cows per day, producing a large volume of skins for the Ponmo market. The interview also revealed that before shutting down in 2008, the only two existing tanneries in Lagos were offering to buy fresh cow skins at a price range of £6.00 to £10.00 per skin – a clearly unattractive offer compared to the Ponmo women’s offer.
Why and how you should be investing – returns and political economy
The market for Ponmo is massive in Lagos and unprecedented in the rest of Nigeria and indeed West Africa. The scale of Ponmo production at the largest abattoir in Lagos (and especially the price people are prepared to pay for it) as shown above calls for serious consideration of the potential for investment in the Ponmo market. There is a clear opportunity to achieve good returns and positive social impact if the women in the Ponmo market are able to participate more efficiently. To invest successfully however it is important to relate well with key stakeholders such as the Lagos Butchers Association. The beef value chain is a closely guarded treasure in Nigeria and to be a successful one investor needs to understand the political economy and power map along this value chain.
Money alone is not enough to invest in this market.
