{"id":71586,"date":"2018-11-13T09:40:21","date_gmt":"2018-11-13T07:40:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=71586"},"modified":"2018-11-13T09:40:21","modified_gmt":"2018-11-13T07:40:21","slug":"producers-challenged-on-consumer-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2018\/11\/13\/producers-challenged-on-consumer-needs\/","title":{"rendered":"Producers challenged on consumer needs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>By Patience Lunda, Contributor: <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_71587\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-71587\" style=\"width: 224px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/cooking-oil.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-71587\" src=\"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/cooking-oil-224x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"224\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/cooking-oil-224x300.jpg 224w, https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/cooking-oil.jpg 273w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 224px) 100vw, 224px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-71587\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">COMPETITIVE\u2014Some local products<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Food Producers have been urged to consider consumer feedback to satisfy market demands.<\/p>\n<p>The call comes amid concerns among consumers over poor quality of some locally-manufactured food products.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on the sidelines of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.times.mw\/government-claims-buy-malawi-strategy-bearing-fruit\/\">Buy Malawi<\/a> sensitisation campaign in Mzuzu, Director of SME\u2019s and Registrar of Cooperatives in the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Wiskes Nkombezi, said improving on packaging and quality could make businesses competitive.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cMalawians should change their mindset. Buying a Malawian product means creating employment to someone,\u201d<\/em> Nkombezi said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>One of the consumers, Luciano Katsabola, urged Malawians to consume local products to promote the industry.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cIf we do not buy Malawian products, we are not patriotic,\u201d<\/em> Katsabola said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>During the campaign, local products like cooking oil, margarine and soap were displayed.<\/p>\n<p>The campaign is targeting patrons in major super markets.<\/p>\n<p>The government launched the Best Buy Malawi initiative in March 2016 to build competitiveness of enterprises, leading to greater economic growth and increased welfare for all Malawian citizens.<\/p>\n<p>The initiative was developed to reduce the ballooning import bill and close the country\u2019s wide trade deficit in the short to medium-term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Patience Lunda, Contributor: Food Producers have been urged to consider consumer feedback to satisfy market demands. The call comes amid concerns among consumers over poor quality of some locally-manufactured food products. Speaking on the sidelines of a Buy Malawi sensitisation campaign in Mzuzu, Director of SME\u2019s and Registrar of Cooperatives in the Ministry of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71586"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71588,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71586\/revisions\/71588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}