Nigeria’s alcoholic beverage manufacturers are beginning to adjust their operations to the Federal Government’s ban on sachet and small-volume alcoholic drinks, but the transition is coming with substantial financial costs and uncertainty for workers.

The immediate confrontation between manufacturers, labour unions and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control appears to be easing, with factories earlier sealed by the regulator reopened and an arrested factory manager released. But for manufacturers, the more difficult phase may now be the restructuring of production lines and finding commercially viable replacements for products targeted by the ban.

President of the Food, Beverage and Tobacco Senior Staff Association, Jimoh Oyibo, said the removal of the affected products from the market had significantly disrupted companies because the smaller pack sizes accounted for an important part of their production and distribution.

“From a financial point of view, the companies have lost substantially because taking out those key pack sizes is as good as closing the company,” Oyibo said.

The Federal Government prohibits the production, importation, distribution and sale of alcoholic beverages packaged in sachets and PET bottles below 200 millilitres. The policy was initially enforced by NAFDAC in February 2024 after a sell-off period, before implementation was suspended following opposition from manufacturers and labour unions.

The issue returned to the front burner after NAFDAC announced that enforcement would resume, citing concerns over the accessibility of high alcohol content drinks to minors and other vulnerable groups.

The renewed enforcement triggered protests by FOBTOB and the National Union of Food, Beverage and Tobacco Employees at NAFDAC’s Lagos office and the National Assembly, with labour warning about the potential consequences for employment and investment in the industry.

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While the confrontation has now eased, Oyibo said manufacturers still faced the difficult task of redesigning their operations around alternative pack sizes.

He said companies would have to invest additional capital in re-engineering production lines while trying to determine whether consumers would accept larger and more expensive alternatives.

“How many people are going to patronise those pack sizes? The essence of those small pack sizes is affordability. Now we are going to the sizes that people hardly patronise,” he said.

That affordability question is central to the adjustment. The smaller containers allowed consumers with limited purchasing power to buy alcoholic drinks at lower absolute prices. Moving production towards larger containers could therefore preserve the companies’ presence in the market while simultaneously shrinking the pool of consumers able or willing to buy the products.

For workers, the uncertainty is equally significant. Oyibo said the union had not been sufficiently involved in discussions between employers and the government and was now waiting for manufacturers to engage it as companies assess the impact of the changes on their workforce.

“The union was not carried along. At this point now, the union is just crossing their fingers and watching what is going to happen,” he said.

He said the union expected employers to invite it to discussions as the restructuring progresses, particularly where changes to production could affect employment.

“I know too well that within the next few days or weeks or months, the employers are going to invite us for the meeting. And then, we should be able to agree on certain things,” Oyibo said.

The union’s immediate concern, he added, was that companies should remain viable through the transition rather than respond to the policy by cutting jobs.

“The important thing is that the companies should not go down the drain,” he said.

FOBTOB had estimated in November 2025 that more than 5.5 million direct and indirect jobs and over ₦2 trillion in investments could be exposed to the consequences of the ban.

Oyibo stopped short of predicting mass redundancies, saying the eventual effect on employment would depend on how successfully manufacturers redirect their investments towards alternative products and pack sizes.

For now, the easing of the dispute between the government and the industry does not mean the economic consequences of the policy have disappeared. The battle has shifted from protests and factory closures to a more complicated question: whether manufacturers can rebuild their businesses around products that remain legal without pricing out the consumers who sustained the smaller pack market.

Meiza Nigeria