Globally, brewers and bottlers of lagers, soft drinks, and other beverages face quality assurance and control issues on daily basis. They violate regulations consciously and most time unknowingly.
The Nigerian market is not an exception as consumers inundate media houses with complaints of product defects.
Short-filled cans and bottles, bottled particles, and other issues of quality control and assurance are common among brewery companies and bottlers of soft drink.
Coca Cola, 7Up, Guinness Nigeria, Nigerian Breweries, and others have all fallen short of international best practice quality control.
In February this year, the Consumer Protection Council (CPC) sanctioned Coca-Cola Nigeria (CCL) and its bottler, the Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC), for violating the Consumer Protection Act.
CPC Director General, Dupe Atoki, said the NBC did not have an effective way of addressing complaints from the public about products and would be sanctioned unless it complied with the law.
Part of the condition given to the NBC to avoid punishment was to subject its manufacturing process to CPC inspection for 12 months.
It emerged recently that the CPC has carried out its threat because Coca Cola Nigeria and the NBC failed to comply with the directive.
However, a statement jointly issued by Coca Cola Nigeria Public Affairs and Communications Director, Clem Ugorji, and NBC Head of Public Affairs and Communications, Uzo Odenigbo, denied the companies were taken to court by the CPC.
“We note from media reports that criminal charges have been filed against NBC and CCNL in relation to alleged violations of the orders that were issued by the Consumer Protection Council in February 2014 following a consumer complaint involving two (2) short-filled cans of Sprite.
“To date we have not been served with any criminal charges,” Ugorji said.
According to him, NBC and CCN respect the CPC and will continue to cooperate with it on the matter.
The statement said NBC and CCN were the first to go to court.
“We filed applications for a judicial review of these orders in February 2014, which review is pending in the courts. We do not believe that our submission for judicial review is in violation of the Council’s orders.
“We have full trust in the Nigerian judicial system.”
Regardless, CPC Director (Lagos Office), Tam Tamunokonbia, insisted that the brand was sanctioned and it remains to be seen whether it complies.
“It is a sanction that we have done before now, it is true that we sanctioned Coca Cola some months ago but what is happening now is an issue of whether they are complying or not, or whether we are taking them to court; that is the next thing we are looking at,” he said.
Despite several complaints of consumer violation against Coca Cola, Odenigbo pledged that “our consumers and customers are our highest priority. NBC and CCNL take all matters relating to our products very seriously and remain committed to maintaining the highest international quality and food safety standards.”
The terms “quality assurance” and “quality control” are used interchangeably to refer to ways of ensuring the quality of a service or product, such as bottled water. However, the terms have different meanings and many people confuse the two.
It is high time brewers and bottlers of these beverages ensured quality control to forestall negative situations.
