3 Factors That Caused 60, 000 Baking Industry Firms To Shut Down

The worsening economic challenges in the country may be affecting the baking industry deeper than many people know.

This reality just emerged in the course of a delivery by the Premium Breadmakers Association of Nigeria (PBAN).

Its president, Engr. Onuorah Emmanuel, raised the alarm over what he described as worsening conditions in the baking industry, saying that more than half of bakeries belonging to his members alone have shut down in recent years.

Speaking during the PBAN Day Out 2025 held in Lagos with the theme: “The Business of Baking: Pathways to Profit, Productivity and Growth,” he identified 3 factors responsible for the shut down of about 60, 000 bakeries in the last 4 years,

According to him, the factors are:

1. skyrocketing production costs,
2. high interest rates, and
3. insecurity

The summary, he stated, is that bakers are battling multiple economic pressures that threaten their survival and the livelihoods of thousands of Nigerians, beginning from after the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The finances are stifling us; interest rates are astronomical. You can’t go to the bank and get a single-digit loan.

“All their loans are above 30 per cent. How does any business survive with that?” he rhetorically asked.

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According to the PBAN President, the bread making industry has suffered massive contraction since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Of the over 140,000 bakeries operating before 2020, Emmanuel recalled, less than 60,000 remain functional today.

“This is not just a baker’s problem. The mortality rate cuts across all manufacturing concerns in Nigeria. The cost of doing business has become unbearable,” Emmanuel said.

On the implication of overdependence on importation, the PBAN president stated:

“Ninety-eight percent of the wheat we use in Nigeria is imported.

“We require about 5.1 million metric tons annually, but Nigeria produces only around 300,000 metric tons.

“So where is backward integration? How will Nigerians get jobs?”