458 Views Posted on 03-Mar-2011

A Survey conducted by the business department of the Health Digest Communications has indicated that the locally produced perfumed rice sells in the market better than the imported ones if it is bagged in foreign bags.
The survey which was conducted across the regions indicated that the demand of the rice when packed in the foreign bags received a high demand as customers and consumers commended the rice as one that has the best aromatic taste.
This exercise was done through the intelligence of the distributors and the officials from the Ghana rice farmers association to test the Ghanaians attitudes towards their local products.
According to the former director of Ghana irrigation Development Authority, Prof. Dan Lamtey, Ghana produces the best perfume rice but the attitude of Ghanaians is made in such a way that they consider their own products as an alternative product.
He said this was the reason for the low patronage of the perfume rice produce locally.
The Ghanaian locally produced rice were put in the foreign bags to look like the foreign imported rice as “RICE MASTER’S CHOICE, SULTANA” to be sold at higher price but the demand increasingly became higher as consumers were always asking for that brand.
The strategy really worked in all the ten regions as dealers, retailers and consumers were chasing it.
Health Digest gathered that the rice is the best in the region and the only way Ghanaians would opt for this rice is to keep it in the foreign bag.
One may call it a marketing deception but the lesson here is to make the purchase of our rice a top priority if really it gets the best taste among all the perfume rice.
The country could be the basket of food and that issue of hunger would be a thing of the past as investor from India and other part of the world are in the country to finalized negotiation with the Ghana Government for Afram Plain to produce more from the field for Ghana to be the first African country to export the best rice.
The local rice is said to have the best taste than the imported ones in the market but the patronage and the demand is always lower as compared to the demands and consumption of the foreign imported perfume rice until this marketing strategy was adopted.
The retailers who spoke to the Health Digest Business said they were shocked at the rate at which the demand became that high and that they could only encourage the marketing company responsible for the bagging and packaging to inscribe something foreign to look as if the rice is imported from the rice export countries and that Ghanaians would have confidence in that brand more than inscribing local name on it.
There are some people in the country who have wrong perceptions about made in Ghana goods.
The Aveyime perfume rice for now is the best in the country than all the imported rice that have choked the shops of many rice dealers. The local rice products could be best sold within the country if the government adopts proper marketing strategy to market the products irrespective of the keen competition the products have meet in the market once at least the consumers have seen that the rice in its deceptive bags sells better than the foreign ones.
By Health Digest Marketing Dept.