But the volume of Nigerian export of foodstuff to these countries is still on a very small scale and they do not go through proper export channels, a Business Day investigation has revealed. According to Favour, a Nigerian woman who exports foodstuffs to Italy, she sends food items in small quantities to her relative over there who owns an African shop to avoid the rigors of going through the checks of Customs officials.

Favour has been in the business of small-scale foodstuff export for about three years, but she can no longer meet the increasing demand for foodstuffs from Africa, a trend which her relative confirmed is going all through Europe. This relative is asking Favor to increase her supply of these foodstuffs.

Favour said some of her other acquaintances living abroad are also urging her to send foodstuffs such as African pepper, gari, yam flour, ground melon (egusi), locust beans (iru) to them to market there. What she is exporting now is no longer sufficient. She said, "I shall have to go through formal channels since I have to do the exportation (on a) larger scale."

According to the West Africa Trade Hub (WATH), there are many small exporters of foodstuff in the sub-region who depend on middlemen to export foodstuff in small quantities and sell them directly to consumers or retailers running ethnic shops in the United States of American or Europe. WATH points out that experienced exporters employ export agents and brokers to maintain a smooth export process.

Woods Akumagba, Chief Executive Officer, IDS, producers of African dry spices in Nigeria said the major challenge exporters of African foods to the United States and Europe experience is packaging. And this challenge he said is connected to insufficient funding. Her company has been exporting dry spices to South Africa for many years and the products are being exported from there to America and Europe, carrying the South African label rather than the Nigerian label.

She believes that if there is adequate funding for Nigerians desiring to export or already in food export, they would be able to do proper packaging and export directly to these places.

Akumagba is more fortunate than most exporters since the packaged spices still carry her company label. According to WATH, most producers of these foodstuffs do not even have an idea of the label being pasted on their produce and where they are marketed. In most cases, the middlemen make more money than the original producers and sales are guaranteed whenever the middle men show up, it noted.

With the large number of Africans in the Diaspora, the potential of the food export business is vast in Europe and America where Africans visiting such places flock to ethnic-food shops, supermarkets, natural and organic food stores, fair trade co-ops, industrial end-users, and the many layers within the food service industry to buy African foodstuffs.