Ghana’s efforts to promote the consumption of locally manufactured products are being hampered by the unscrupulous re-packaging of imported goods.

This is one of the key concerns of Michael Kottoh, Managing Partner of Konfidants, an international advisory firm, on the country’s ailing made-in-Ghana agenda.

He says most products on the shelves of supermarkets tagged to have been produced in the country are foreign brands; a situation he wants importers to desist from.

“Majority of them are food items and products branded with native Ghanaian names that look like made in Ghana products, but when you check it, you realize that they are actually imported. A lot of importers are beginning to brand goods with local names and repackaging them in Ghana. Very disturbing is that such products have consistently stayed low because they are imported. It doesn’t make sense,” he said.

In the third edition of the Konfidants Made-In-Ghana survey of Ghana’s leading retail supermarkets, Ghanaian products in supermarkets saw a marginal increase.

Across all 11 supermarkets considered, made-in-Ghana brands constituted 31% of the 20 selected product categories, while foreign brands comprised 69%.

The made-in-Ghana share was 18% in the 2019 survey and 26% in the 2020 survey.

The report noted that the improved performance of made-in-Ghana products is not due to a significant increase in the absolute count of Ghanaian brands on the shelves, but rather a significant decline in the number of foreign brands on the shelves compared to previous years.

But to reverse this worrying trend, Michael Kottoh believes more needs to be done to improve the production value chain to get the buy-in of Ghanaians to patronize made-in-Ghana news.

“We need a lot of these campaigns to ensure that as consumers, patronizing made-in Ghana [products] is being patriotic. As a consumer, your preferences will be shaped by a lot of factors. One of the trends we saw was claims that the packaging of Ghanaian products has never been the best. So we need to spend a lot of time to mature in the production and packaging of local goods.”

Michael Kottoh was speaking on the Citi Business Festival’s forum on surviving the uncertainties of consumer markets.

The forum had the CEO of the Ghana Export Promotion Authority, Afua Asabea Asare, former Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, Robert Ahomka-Lindsay, and the Retail Banking Director of Absa Bank, Charles Addo as panelists.