Business Brands First Aluminium products are well known brand — Elfrink First Aluminium products are well known brand — Elfrink Monday, 17 September 2012 11:33 BUKOLA BABABUNMI Share 0 Comments Del.icio.us! Digg! Google! Reddit! * Prev * 1 of 5 * Next Ben Elfrink, is the current Managing Director/CEO of First Aluminium Nigeria Plc with thirty years of experience in the Aluminium industry. In an interview with BUKOLA BABABUNMI, Elfrink, the Hollandborn Aluminium expert, express his love for Nigeria and the quality standard of First Aluminium products, amongst other things. Excerpts... WHAT impact has your company made so far that made them get the Classic Africa Merit Award as Best Aluminium Company of the year? Our name is a well known brand for best quality products in Nigeria. We are main partner for SON(Standards Organisation of Nigeria)in defining the standards for the industry and actively works together with SON in reducing the substandard imports. We think its time to change the quality standard, that's why we got this award. Do you think your company has been able to improve the quality standard of roofing sheet in Nigeria? Yes, because Nigerians now understands what quality is all about. When did you come on-board? I stepped in 2 years ago. We would like to know about First Aluminium Nigeria (FAN)Plc? FAN is one of the oldest companies in Nigeria, RC No.2288. It started August 1960 in Port-Harcourt, listed on NSE in 1992 with over 600 employees and 7 sites in the country(Port- Harcourt 2, Lagos 3, Abuja and Kaduna). FAN is the 19th biggest manufacturing company in Nigeria that introduced aluminium roofs in Nigeria( both painted/coloured). Also, renowned for supplying the highest quality sheets available in Nigerian market. FAN has 2 Divisions: 'Aluminium Sheets' and 'Packaging Tubes'. In both FAN is 1st and 2nd in the market. In a market where suppliers disappear as soon as they have sold something, FAN is the reliable partner that guarantees many years of non-fading roofs. How would you rate the economy since you came to Nigeria? I was first posted to Port-Harcourt, but left because of security reasons and I always have Mobile Police (MOPOL) around me. But now, things are back to normal and I can see a process of development in Nigeria. In what way would you guarantee Nigeria's quality products as long as FAN is concern? Thank you very much. That's a good question. We use aluminium scraps. We recycle and re-melt them into aluminium blocks and transform them into shapes. By controlling or opposing, you can control the quality. Though manufacturing is not easy, we maintain our quality and we are proud to say we guarantee 100% quality products. We have couple of products in the pipeline that will be launched within the next 6 months. How affordable are your products? Our products are highly affordable. We try to increase volume while lowering our Price for Product Per Unit. Where do you get your raw materials from? We use Aluminium Scraps that come from publishing companies, car radiators. We specify on what kind of scraps we use. Can we say Nigeria market is full of Aluminium Products? Nigeria market is absolutely not full of Aluminium products. If we look at it, the conception is 0.4kilo/year unlike the rest of Europe which is about 40-50kilo/year. Nigeria is still lacking in the use of Aluminium products, and we are pushing hard to get manufacturing going and easy for Nigerians to patronise. So, we expect it to grow to 10-20 kilo in the next 5 years.