Fruits and Veggies - Local versus Imported spot the difference

Compliments of the season, trust you had a very happy Easter.

All the talk I had last week about comparing imported fruits and vegetables to those of Nigeria took me on a trip to Shoprite, Lagos.

I went there on Easter Monday to window shop as that is my favourite hobby and luckily I have two beautiful girls that also love to window shop so it wasn’t a difficult outing with kids although I had to say no a lot of times as they pointed to so many things in the shops. 

Anyway, on this day I took my time to compare the local fruits and veggies to that of the imported varieties, the fruits and veggies at Shoprite are products of Nigeria and those of South Africa and I must tell you the difference is 7up. LOL.

I turned this into an educative session with the kids and asked them to spot the difference which they had to tell me before checking the label. It was so easy for them as they were correct at every attempt after I showed them what I was looking for.

Although it turned out to be a fun thing to do, my kids were not happy that the foreign fruits and veggies looked better than ours. When they asked for an explanation I had to just tell them it was due to the weather and the quality of seeds our farmers were planting. Why can’t we change our seeds? asked the little one of 7, I said I don’t know if it’s as simple as that but I will find out and revert.

Let me take you through the aisles and paint a picture of what went on. We started at the tomatoes section, the foreign (South Africa) tomatoes were plum,  firm, large and will obviously keep in your refrigerator for a long time. They will also look good in your salads and fresh dishes. Compared to the local tomatoes, it was not as firm, it was watery and doesn’t look like it will keep for long. My main problem with local tomatoes (the one I usually buy in Lagos market not Shoprite) is that they are not well sorted and graded so we have too many waste. 

At the lemon section, the imported lemons were large, yellow and inviting compared to the local lemon that was not good looking at all. Irish potatoes and onions were also easily differentiated. Orange;, the difference in the oranges was just too much, we have the local oranges that are a combination of yellow/green/brown  versus the imported oranges that are orange, obviously orange.

At Shoprite all local and foreign fruits/veggies are put side by side and if not for the massive price difference no one will choose the local option over the foreign.

How can we salvage this without banning the imported option?, surely there must be a lot we can do to make our local fruits and veggies as attractive as their imported counterparts. How do you want an international franchised hotel/restaurant that is used to quality and fresh foreign fruits and veggies choose to use local alternatives that do not meet up. Apart from quality, the look and feel of the produce is also important for presentation purposes as we eat first with our eyes.

I tell you the difference in price is crazy, I know for sure the hotels want to use local produce for freshness, availability and lower price but the 3 – 5 star hotels would not compromise quality for price. If we want our Tourism sector to succeed we must look into the quality of the local produce.

We need to encourage our farmers, so buying local is the way to go but is that the best way to encourage them? How can we help them improve their standards, sort, grade and use quality seeds, improve farming practice so that their produce will sell themselves in the market place?

If my little kids looked at a market stall and consistently selected imported produce over local ones then we are in trouble. Before we drag everyone into farming let us help the existing farmers to be better, more organised, more profitable etc. if farming is standardized and made profitable, Nigerians will flood there by themselves as our people need jobs and money.

We need to standardize our farming operations for it will improve the quality of our produce, reduce our waste and increase our profit. If we do that, our produce can sit side by side foreign produce and compete favorably.

Next time you are in the supermarket go through the fruit/veggies aisle and share with us your observations. I will really like to hear from you.

Cheers.

p. s. We were not allowed to take pictures of the fruits/veggies so we can't post any here.