Masa, known as rice cake in English is a popular delicacy across major cities in Nigeria with a strong presence of its leading producers located in Bauchi State.
It is also sourced from maize and millet in some parts of the North and mostly taken with ‘miyan taushe (vegetable soup) or spiced ground pepper. In this interview, Hajiya Hajara Muhammed, popularly known as Maman, is the leader of popular Masa House at Gidan Masa, hosting hundreds of Masa producers, trainers and trainees.
Hajiya Maman shares the experiences of Masa producers in the hub, her success story, how they are coping amid COVID-19 pandemic and how government could assist them to modernize the production and packaging of the delicacy.
Hajia, how did you cope with your Masa production and marketing during Coronavirus pandemic?
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused series of challenges and hurdles in the process of production.
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, traders increased the prices of commodities and all the necessary ingredients, a situation that affected the process of production and marketing, especially selling of Masa within the metropolis.
The pandemic has also affected not only our market but by extension, the training of prospective apprentices, trainees within and outside Bauchi State.
As I earlier told you, the lockdown also caused a lot of challenges because markets, restaurants and shops were shut down for sometimes to curtail the spread of the virus.
The situation compelled us to evolve strategies to improve our personal hygiene and environmental sanitation within as precautionary measures for all the production team.
We also employed the services of some youths that control inflow because the disease is not showing on the face of our domestics customers who usually come with their bowls and containers to buy for breakfast and lunch as well as some vendors that continued their business despite the condition and challenges of COVID-19 pandemic.
Another challenge that the pandemic caused is the suspension of public events like birth and marriage ceremonies, send-forth, recreational activities, night clubs and other gatherings, which form parts of our customers with many of contracting clients who brought their commodities and ingredients and pay for the production fees were nowhere to be found.
One other area that weakens our production and sale during the pandemic is inter-state travel ban because our customers from Kano, Jos, Abuja and other areas stopped coming and the situation forced us to reduce the production drastically.
What are you planning to grow the business by improving the packaging and marketing?
The Coronavirus pandemic has destabilized our initial strategies of growing our business but that will not deter us from evolving new steps to improved packaging our products to boost its sale in the market.
Before the pandemic, we have different packages to preserve its hygiene to the satisfaction of our customers, depending on the quantity of demand both within and outside the state.
We have the traditional or normal packaging with unsold newspapers, magazines, leather bags and the three different takeaways, buckets and cartons and coolers depending on the quantity and the location where the Masa is to be taken to.
We are currently facing problems of packaging of Masa in Bauchi, especially with the surge of Lassa fever and Coronavirus, many customers are rejecting the package on unsold newspapers on the pretext that they don’t know the kind of people that read or handle the newspapers.
Some even tell us that Lassa fever spreads through newspapers and if you package the Masa inside the papers, they will reject it completely.
The situation compelled us to seek for plain sheets of paper for packaging and other new techniques of re-packaging the product.
We now have smaller rubber bowls with covers and other mini takeaways packs to the satisfaction of our customers.
You know we are trying to explore all avenues to maintain our customers. Masa has been everything to my life and my family for more than 30 years.
For instance, I used part of the income I earned from it to sponsor my pilgrimage to Hajj in Saudi Arabia on two occasions apart from payments of school fees of my children and grandchildren.
With Masa I was able to sponsor my children education from nursery up to tertiary level, my daughter graduated from university as a nurse and she is now working in the hospital.
One other, who has passion for Masa business, is now among the resource persons training people how to produce Masa within and outside Bauchi.
We have tremendous successes in Masa business and I am very grateful for all the achievements made so far.
What do you think government should to support you and improve the packaging and marketing of Masa?
We want government to assist us with funds to expand our capacity and scope of business following the Coronavirus turbulent experiences to make the necessary changes for the present realities and precautionary measures to curtail the spread of COVID-19.
We are also appealing to government to support small and medium enterprises with soft loans and training to improve our packaging to meet modern and global best practices so that our products can compete with any other food in the market, boost the economic development of both individuals and our society.
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