Govt rallies supermarkets and retail shops to promote local goods

The government through the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has begun a campaign to encourage supermarkets and foreign retail shops in Ghana to promote locally produced goods dubbed “Made in Ghana Display”.

Consequently, the FDA has commenced engagements with major supermarkets and retail outlets to allocate specific sections in their supermarkets and shops for Made in Ghana products.

This is aimed at enhancing easy access to local products even in these shops and adding to efforts to deepen markets for made in Ghana products.

The Minister of Information, Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah who made this known said in response to the campaign, "some of these shops have already begun dedicating prime shelves to Ghanaian manufactured products."

Recently the Chief Executive Officer of the FDA, Mrs. Delese Darko launched the “Buy Ghana Love Ghana” at the Koala Supermarket in Accra and "we want to challenge other retail shops to replicate same," Mr Oppong Nkrumah said.

While at this, the FDA is also poised to expedite the registration of locally manufactured products to meet International standards, he said.

This, he insisted will facilitate easy admission into global retail outlets both here and abroad.

"It is worth noting at this point that, the food industry contributes hugely to the local economy and the efforts of the FDA to bring this industry to international standards and create more shelf space for it in our local supermarkets cannot be overemphasized."

"We urge the local manufacturing companies and start-ups to take advantage of this and register their products so they can equally compete on the market, the Information Minister said.

Explaining the rationale for the initiative, the Chief Executive Officer of the FDA, Mrs. Delese Darko said it followed from a meeting they had with President Akufo-Addo where he said emerging markets in Turkey, India and China got to where they are from patronising their own products.

She said they went for an inspection in India and all they saw at a point was trucks carrying raw materials into India and trucks carrying finished products out of India, which means that as a country, "if we want to get to where they want to get to, we have to start patronising our own products and therefore we took the President's [Akufo-Addo] statement as seriously as we should set up this initiative, where we ask retail outlets that sell other products to give locally products the prominence that they deserve."

"We have also at the Food and Drugs Authority, we have special units that are dedicated to registering locally manufactured products. We also have an industrial support department, that looks at industry, so if you come as a started up, we have a department specially set up to help train you to help bring your industry to the point where you can manufacture products that are worthy of international standards."