Press Statement: Food for Nations


Press Statement Lagos, Nigeria

24th November 2023

Food for Nations- First One-Stop-Shop Food Export Platform in Africa Launches in Nigeria, to Facilitate Food Trade Between Nigeria/Africa and France/EU and the rest of the world.

  1. JR Farms, a multinational agribusiness company headquartered in Nigeria with support of French Embassy Nigeria has unveiled a one-stop shop food trading platform designed to facilitate food export between Nigeria/Africa and France/EU and the rest of the world.
  2. The first of its kind in Africa with a wholistic feature and partnership base, Food for Nations is designed to assemble, host, and connect cross-sectoral stakeholders across the agri-food value chain to facilitate food exports and imports between Nigeria/Africa and France/EU with France/EU being one of Nigeria’s biggest trade partners of many decades.
  3. With partnership support from the office of the Senior Agriculture Counsellor of the French Embassy Nigeria- the platform will solve knowledge gaps by making relevant and authentic information available to food importers/exporters from both Nigeria and France, facilitate access to market for both Nigerian and French food businesses/traders seeking to import/export food between the two countries/region; facilitate access to right standardization regime provided by Bureau Veritas; enhance connectivity of importers and exporters to financial partners who can facilitate their trade among others.
  4. They cross-sectoral stakeholders to be hosted on the platform include food exporters and importers, off-takers, trade financiers, logistics and warehousing, standardization partners among other stakeholders. Already aggregated on the platform include major global and national partners such as Bureau Veritas- a global standardization laboratory; Stanbic IBTC Bank/Zest Payment, Union Bank of Nigeria, Zenith Bank among others.
  5. One of the biggest challenges hindering smooth import and export of food between Nigeria/Africa and the world is the lack of organized systems that facilitate food trade. Lack of organized systems has deprived stakeholders’ information, connectivity and support needed to have successful agri-food import and export. This leads to pieces of fragmented efforts by stakeholders denying them access to the right market, packaging requirements, quality requirements, warehousing, trade rules among other requirements.
  6. The unveiling of the platform in Nigeria is the first leg of the unveiling while the unveiling in France will be hosted in Paris in 2024 to onboard and connect with French food importers and exporters targeting Nigeria/African food market.
  7. The platform will strengthen bilateral ties between Nigeria and France- by promoting economic cooperation between the two countries in food systems for mutual growth. France is one of Nigeria’s biggest trading partner with more than $2bn worth of trade annually; with Food for Nations platform, trade between the two countries is expected to grow significantly in the coming years. 


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