Ghana’s immune booster manufacturer, COA Research and Manufacturing Company Limited revealed that it has recorded increase in production and sales as COVID-19 pandemic cases in the country continue to rise.
The First Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the company, Nana Ofosuhene Apenteng Awere, disclosed this when executives and some members of the Institute of Financial and Economic Journalists (IFEJ) paid a courtesy call on the management of the company at Wosorkrom in the Abura-Asebu-Kwamansa District of the Central Region.
“We have produced more than so many thousands of COA Mixture boxes, since last year. We have produced more than 8 thousand boxes and each box has 24 bottles. So if you multiply 8 thousand by 24 it means we have produced 192 thousand bottles. But if you go to our warehouse now you will see just a few bottles sitting there”.
Nana Awere added: “All the boxes that we have produced are gone and people are still looking for the products here and there. In Cote d’Ivoire, UK, U.S, Belgium, Germany, France, and anywhere people are looking for the COA Mixture products.
Even in Ghana here, it is too much. We are even contemplating that if we are not careful we may not be able to meet the market demand. So, we ourselves are also gearing towards increasing production to meet the demands”.
“Because you may think that if you look at all the herbal medicines in the country, COA Mixture is one of the most expensive. But why are people still craving and going after it because they are testifying. The testimonies are too great.
Some of our compatriots are selling theirs for GHC6.00 and GHC10.00. The highest is GHC20. Ours the retail price is GHC100.00 and yet it does stay on the market. That shows what the product is capable of doing and what people are also benefiting from it”.
He said all these countries are struggling to get COA Mixture due to its efficacy and superior quality on the local and international markets. The COA Mixture which used to be called COA FS according to him has gone through a lot laboratory and clinical tests at the prestigious Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) of the University of Ghana.
Addressing demand issue
To address the increase in demand issue, the First Deputy CEO revealed that the company had acquired a very large track of land near the company’s factory for expand but a few constraints had delayed the construction of a new factory.
“We are in the process of going to start the new factory which is going to be a fully automated one which can turnout a lot of products within a very short time. We are also coming out with other products, so that the new factory is going to be a multipurpose factory which will churn out these other products as well”, Nana Awere stressed.
“With our install capacity we will be able to meet the demand. For now, we have the capacity to meet the market demand. We are able to produce at least 200 boxes of the COA Mixture in a day. 200 boxes by 24 bottles are 4800 boxes are produced by the company in a day.
But we are aiming to go beyond that. So for now, it is good. You can see that we haven’t advertised too much and yet this is the level of patronage. We are starting our advertisement very soon and we expect that our sales to go very higher. We are putting ourselves for that challenge and we will deliver”.
Nana Awere said the company has branch offices in Accra and Koforidua both in the Greater Accra and Eastern regions respectively.
We used to have COAFS as a food supplement when we started. It was called COA food supplement (COAFS) and it was popular on the Ghanaian market.
We have gone through a lot of changes and now we have it as full registered drug by the Food and Drug Authority (FDA) as COA Mixture.
Production cycle
Touching on the production cycle, Nana Awere told the journalists that the production process starts with the RSWM department, where receiving, sorting, washing and milling of the raw materials take place.
The process according to him then proceeds to the distillation unit, where the milled leaves are boiled under controlled temperature until the vapour is collected into the bottles after passing through the necessary conditions.
From the automated bottling unit, the product is then labelled automatically to be prepared for testing, which is usually done by qualified laboratories including the Food Research Institute’s lab and once cleared, the product would be ready for market consumption.
Nana Awere noted that the COA Mixture is made from a group of six leaves with high efficacy to support the general well-being and assist the management of all disease conditions.
The COA Mixture is also scientifically tested and confirmed to be microbiologically safe, non-toxic to the liver and kidneys in both acute and chronic toxicity tests.
In all the processes aforementioned, the quality assurance team ensures that everyone adheres to the standards and that no contaminations occur in any of the production process, Nana Awere explained.
Relationship
The Head of Programmes of IFEJ, Naa Torshie said: “This year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the IFEJ in collaboration with jury of the seventh awards settled on business of health as the theme category for the seventh awards”.
So in doing that they also have to look for a company or an organization that are into health issues and not necessarily the social aspect of health but rather the business aspect of health as well.
It was through the search that IFEJ landed on COA. “We believe that it is a local economy because of the role that some of your products especially COA Mixture play during this pandemic period.
When the pandemic hit at us we were looking for immune boosters to boost our immune systems. So we thought wise to promote our own hence our visit”, she added.
Factory tour
The Quality Assurance Manager for the company, Dr Caleb Mawuli Agbale, who conducted the journalists around the factory, said that every activity undertaken in production process is recorded to aid traceability and that quality is of high concern to the company.
Although there are human interactions involved in the production process, it ceases from the distillation stage until the labelling stage when the product would have evaded any possible interaction with personnel of the facility, according to him.
African Eye Report