Lateef Ayodele Sanni
SanDel Engineering Services Limited was incorporated in Nigeria in 2010 but started full operations in 2016 as a start-up, producing small and appropriate agricultural processing machines to help farmers and food processors add value to their harvested crops.
Since 2017 the company has produced over 200 units of simple and efficient agro-processing machines, distributed among 25 individual and 10 corporate customers and generated over USD235,000.00 in revenue. The agro-processing machines produced by SanDel range from cassava processing machines for gari and cassava flour production, palm fruit processing machines for palm oil and palm kernel oil production, plantain slicers for chips production, maize shellers, etc. The most successful of SanDel’s home grown technologies is the 3-D-3-P conductive rotary dryer which was shortlisted among the best 16 engineering innovations in Africa in 2019.
In 2019 the company diversified into the production of dried brewers grain (DBG) which is a rich and cheap substitute for maize in livestock feed production. SanDel is the first indigenous company in Nigeria to establish a pilot drying plant using its own indigenous technologies for collecting brewers spent grains (BSG), processing the grains and drying the wet product to produce high quality DBG which is sold to livestock feed producers.
The total addressable market for dried brewers grain (DBG) in Nigeria is over USD1.6 billion per annum while the serviceable available market is about USD40 million. Today SanDel’s share of the market is just USD1.7 million. By increasing SanDel’s plant capacity to just 25 tons of DBG per day, over USD1.2 million can be generated per annum with substantial impact on hunger reduction, and productive engagement of youths.
SanDel was not totally spared from the effects of Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 as its palnned growth from DBG production got interrupted. Thanks to the Royal Academy of Engineering, UK who selected SanDel along with 25 other businesses across Africa and gave support to pivot its business into PPE production. Today SanDel is one of the few companies in Nigeria owning a state-of-the-art 3D Printing and Vacuum Forming Laboratory where face masks, face shields and a variety of other non-Covid products can be produced.
The staff of SanDel Engineering have enjoyed tremendous local and international supports in terms of grants, equipment and technical entrepreneurship development training programmes. SanDel’s team was part of AfricArena 2019 in Cape Town, South Africa, 2019 Pitch@Palace, Buckingham Palace, London and Sankalp Forum 2020, Nairobi, Kenya just to mention a few. No doubt SanDel has moved from a start-up it was in 2017 to a scaling business but continues to seek support to sustain its growth.
SanDel’s vision is to expand its business quickly to become “midwife industry” between the well-established brewery industry and the feed mill industry in Nigeria, and to expand into other African regions, to become a global player in the manufacturing and agro-allied sector. SanDel currently investment of USD800,000.00 to expand its DBG production capacity from 5tons per day to 25tons per day within the next 12 months.
Our ultimate goal is to build our drying plant next to every brewery in Nigeria and gain greater share of the USD1.6 billion market available in Nigeria.
Cassava, Grains
