“Food is not just what ends up on a plate,” says Balogun, founder and CEO of Limlim Foods Production Company Ltd. “It is health, jobs, income, and stability. When you see how much is lost, it stops looking like a ‘business idea’ and starts looking like a responsibility.
In a country where up to 40% of food produced never reaches a consumer, Adeola Balogun doesn’t see statistics. She sees stories: tonnes of tomatoes rotting on bad roads, grains spoiling in inadequate storage, and farmers watching a season’s labour vanish overnight.
That sense of responsibility drives her company, which sits at the critical intersection of African agricultural processing and Nigeria’s urgent campaign to reduce food losses. In an exclusive interview with BusinessDay, Balogun mapped out not just her company’s mission, but a clear-eyed blueprint for national food security.
With a background in multinational food corporations, Balogun runs her operation on a non-negotiable principle: trust is fragile.
“One bad batch can destroy it,” she states. Limlim operates with HACCP certification, NAFDAC approval, and what she calls “the discipline of systems”, documented processes, traceability, and routine checks. “Quality is everyone’s job. You can’t ‘inspect it into’ food at the end.”
In Nigeria’s turbulent economy, where inflation and foreign exchange swings redefine markets overnight, Balogun’s strategy is deliberate. She doesn’t chase trends; she studies underlying shifts.
“You must ask: what will actually work here, with Nigerian-grown produce, our logistics, our power realities, without dropping our standards?” This means constant product refinement, packaging innovation to extend shelf life (“it’s science, not luck”), and ruthless waste reduction. “In this economy, waste will break you.”
According to Balogun, food insecurity can be percieved as a chain reaction of systemic failures: farmers lacking support and facing insecurity, crippling logistics, and a critical lack of processing and storage.
“You cannot build food security when farmers are unsafe,” she emphasizes. “Even when food is grown, our roads and logistics destroy value. Perishables don’t have patience.”
Her solutions are practical and interconnected:
For Storage: “Nigeria needs a real plan, not scattered projects.” She advocates for functional pack houses and cold storage near farms, coupled with dry storage solutions for grains. Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) are key, with government providing land and incentives, and the private sector building and operating hubs. “Storage isn’t just space, it’s preservation of value.”
For Safety: To curb the sale of expired food, Balogun calls for stricter enforcement, professional stock management by retailers using “First-Expired, First-Out” systems, and smart technology like barcode scanning for traceability. “Penalties must actually hurt, not be something offenders budget for.”
The Big Fix: “Nigeria must treat food processing as strategic infrastructure,” she asserts. It preserves value, stabilizes supply, creates jobs, and saves foreign exchange.
Also, profitability and solving real problems are not in conflict. By helping local produce last longer, travel better, and reach people safely, Limlim Foods is proving that a company can do both.
“Consistency builds trust,” she concludes, “and in the food business, trust is what keeps you in business. But more than that, it’s what feeds a nation.”
From her opinion lines, Nigeria’s path to food security is clearly a matter of deliberate choice, coordinated investment, and treating food not as a commodity, but as a cornerstone of national stability.
Read full interview HERE
