Consumers’ acceptability of local rice brands in Nigeria. Which marketing functions really matter?

With an average annual import bill of USD 300 million, Nigeria is the Africa’s largest rice consuming and importing country. This has been attributed to the poor quality of locally produced rice. Despite huge investments of over USD 1.65 billion made by government and private sectors in rice processing over the last six years – which has led to dramatic improvements in the quality of local rice brands – the consumers’ preference for imported rice brands persists. Prioritizing the implementation of consumer demand-focused domestic marketing policies and programs could encourage the consumers’ acceptability of local rice brands. Therefore, this study attempts to provide some insight, from the consumer perspective, on the local rice marketing managers’ need to improve their functions. A binary logistic model was estimated using a 2014 dataset collected from a survey with 460 rice consumer households in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) of Nigeria. The results showed empirical evidence for the consumers’ acceptability of local rice brands in Nigeria and the need for improvements in marketing functions that enhance the promotion and distribution of local rice brands. The implications of these findings for the development of Nigeria’s rice marketing policy are discussed.