A herbal based drink, is not just any ordinary alcoholic drink. Bitters are made from carefully selected tropical plant extracts which forms part of a secret recipe, and it is popular for its aphrodisiac qualities.
One of the important things to understand about bitters manufacturers is that they are extremely protective about their recipe.
All the mystery and protectiveness over bitters comes from a long history of trying to fend off competitors, imitators, and counterfeiters in the bitters space. According to history, bitters got its start in 1824 when a German, Dr. Johann Siegert, who lived in Venezuela, developed a medicinal remedy for stomach ailments within Simon Bolivar’s troops at the military hospital where he was the Surgeon-General.
viagra-drinksHe named these bitters simply “Aromatic Bitters” and administered them as medicine. These bitters remained a well-regarded tonic with the troops and among family and friends. It wasn’t until 1853 when Dr. Siegert’s son, Carlos C. Siegert, returned from his education in Europe and devoted himself to the bitters business that things really took off.
But the case of Ghana’a Alomo bitters from the Kasapreko company , managed by Kwabena Adjei, the founder of Kasapreko, was a different one, it owns its history from the fact that Africans were drinking herbs locally mixed with alcohol. But his vision was to use scientific method to produce the product with clinical authentication.
Adjei introduced Alomo 10 years after the company was established as he was producing Kasapregin. But the breakthrough came when he introduced Alomo bitter which became a blazer in the bitters market.
Some people started smuggling Alomo Bitters into the Nigerian market before the product got the National Agency for Food Drugs and Control, NAFDAC registration. The product received immediate consumer acceptance as the consumers needed something different from lager beer. When the product officially entered Nigeria, distributors jumped on it and this created the visibility and the product boomed, again on the back of affordability.
Predictably, between 2011 and 2012, the product market share hovered around 80 percent of the bitters market. But this share was soon weakened as adulteration of the product and genuine competition entered to tap into what experts described as N32.2 billion annual bitters market.
In a while, both registered and unregistered bitter products which faked Alomo traced it way to the market unfettered.
He was able to find a scientific way of infusing alcohol in the the herbs that formed the bitters. So he was able to partner with Scientific Plant Medicine in Mapong, which is World Health Organisation affiliate that did the extraction of the herbs. That helped him to make sure that the herbs and the amount of herbs and the proportion of the herbs are according to what is good for human consumption.
The company had previously promised to start production of Alomo Bitters and other of its products in Nigeria as a result of its huge market which is its biggest export but said it is being frustrated by the faking of the brand which has reduced the brand equity of Alomo Bitters.
“We wanted to make a strong foot print in Nigeria and we have not canceled the ambition but once we are able to get rid of those destroying the market and harming the lives of the people through faking of our product then we can decide to put the factory in place”, Kwabena Adjei, the company’s founder and CEO told Vanguard in Accra, Ghana recently.
Adjei however regretted that the faking of the product has affected the equity of the brand. “Thus if we don’t fight the fake, we are hurting the government because fakers don’t pay tax. We are harming the consumers because fakers don’t use good product. Some of these fake products have been tested in our laboratory and I tell you that the result is shocking and unhealthy to consumers”, he said.
Adjei who recognized Nigeria as a big market in Africa said the brand’s dominance of the market has been greatly touched not by genuine competition but by fake market. He however said that the company which is now exporting to European and Western countries and other African countries is presently collaborating with Nigeria’s regulatory agencies and distributors to tackle the fake market syndrome.
In order to still offer quality products to Nigerians who have accepted the product and checkmate faking which is affecting the brand , with potential of causing health consequence on consumers, Adjei and his team are introducing security seal on the Alomo brand.
In his response to adulteration, he stated: “two years ago we embarked on a journey to protect our brand and consumers. That journey took us to Germany where we partnered with a hologram company”. According to him, the security will involve four levels all in an attempt to ensure that the consumer gets the right quality product. “We know that fakers will try to confuse the consumers with fake holographic seal but ours is so sophisticated and consumers will be able to identify the original from the fake” he said.
In order to also reach the growing international market, Kasapreko has commissioned two production lines – the pet bottle production that rolls out 40,000 containers per hour and the glass bottle line that produces 30,000 bottles per hour.
Today, Kasapreko continues to receive enquiries from various countries such as Australia, US, UK for the supply of Alomo and other brands within its portfolio. In all it has 15 variants in Gin, whiskey, wine categories. Adjei which have won several awards since 1999 to date
