How Nigerians reinvented an Italian tinned tomato brand

In a engaged Lagos nutrient market, a lawsuit points astatine an enamel vessel filled with rice. “How overmuch for a derica?” she asks.

Salesman Christopher Onyekwere scoops grains into a tin tin and holds it up, listing the prices for section and imported rice.

Heavy usage has worn the substance disconnected the tin tin that erstwhile contained 400 grammes of herb paste. The branding connected astir of the tin cans utilized to measurement rice, melon seeds and black-eyed beans astatine Lagos’s Idi Alba marketplace is arsenic illegible.

Derica is simply a portion of measurement recovered successful markets each implicit Lagos, arsenic good arsenic successful immoderate cities successful the south, similar Port Harcourt, and the east, similar Enugu. But wherever does the sanction travel from? Twenty-one-year-old Onyekwere shrugs. “I person nary idea.”

An older trader connected the adjacent thoroughfare responds to the question with a smile.

“How aged was the salesman you spoke to? You indispensable person asked the incorrect person. Too young to retrieve however fashionable De Rica herb paste was,” says 49-year-old Henry Njoku.

The derica-size tin is connected the near astatine a Lagos marketplace [Femke van Zeijl/Al Jazeera]

Ubiquitous tin can

When Njoku moved westbound from Imo State to Lagos arsenic a teen successful the 1980s to acceptable up his nutrient shop, vendors were already utilizing derica arsenic a measurement.

But the De Rica marque was erstwhile truthful wide successful confederate Nigeria, helium says, that it was utilized simply to mean herb paste, immoderate the brand.

Nigerian nutrient writer Yemisi Aribisala remembers her grandparents utilizing it erstwhile she was increasing up successful the 1970s and 80s. “De Rica was everywhere. At that time, everyone considered it the champion tinned tomato,” she says.

As the tin cans were truthful ubiquitous, nutrient vendors started to usage the bare cans to measurement food, each scoop being a “derica”. “We recycle truthful much, it makes consciousness those tins became a portion of measurement,” Aribisala adds.

There are besides different units of measurement based connected well-known products. Blue Band margarine tubs are utilized to measurement a “butter”, portion the smaller “cigarette cup” is measured by tins that erstwhile contained 50 cigarettes.

In Longthroat Memoirs, her 2017 postulation of essays connected Nigerian cuisine, Aribisala laments the challenges of trying to construe cigaret cups and dericas into the ounces and pounds of a cookbook. But she understands wherefore the marketplace vendors similar to usage them: “Good scales are expensive, and bare tins are free.”

A salesman astatine the Idi Araba marketplace successful Lagos shows the cups helium uses for measuring melon seeds [Femke van Zeijl/Al Jazeera]

Any tin volition do

Although the sanction “derica” is used, marketplace vendors these days usage cans with antithetic marque names to measurement this unit, says Njoku. At his Idi Araba stall, helium points astatine the tins resting connected the mounds of adust goods. “None of them are De Rica. We don’t find De Rica tins astatine this marketplace immoderate more.”

In 2017, the Nigerian national authorities banned the import of herb products to stimulate section herb production. Because of the precocious outgo of mounting up a tin accumulation line, which would rise user prices, locally produced paste, including De Rica, started mostly being sold successful integrative packets, starring to the disappearance of the iconic cans.

“Goment don prohibition americium [The authorities banned it],” explains Agatha Okonkwo successful Pidgin.

De Rica was erstwhile the starring herb paste brand, according to Okonkwo, the proprietor of AO Stores astatine the wholesale Mushin market, wherever each kinds of products, from Maggi cubes to dried crayfish, are sold.

“There was a clip Nigerians said De Rica erstwhile they meant herb paste,” she says. She’d alternatively not notation her age, but she remembers her parent cooking stew with De Rica successful the 1960s. “Everybody utilized it. That clip has passed.”

De Rica has its origins successful a herb processing mill that began operating successful 1912 with 20 workers successful the countryside of bluish Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region. It is unclear erstwhile the marque archetypal made its mode to Nigeria, but Nigerian consumers, similar Okonkwo, hint their archetypal memories of it arsenic acold backmost arsenic the 1960s.

The saleswoman shows enactment aft enactment of cardboard boxes filled with 60gm sachets containing antithetic brands of herb paste. Only 1 carton holds De Rica. The others are mostly Sonia – “the cheapest” – and Gino – “the astir popular” and akin successful terms to De Rica. Even earlier the authorities ban, De Rica was nary longer the starring brand. “Competition is excessively much,” she explains.

“This is the lone mode you’ll find De Rica herb paste today,” says Okonkwo, who has not seen the canned merchandise for much than 5 years.

Agatha Okonkwo has been selling De Rica astatine the Mushin marketplace successful Lagos for arsenic agelong arsenic she tin retrieve [Femke van Zeijl/Al Jazeera]

Brand loyalty

Today, immoderate inactive curse by De Rica.

Victor Moses, a 31-year-old sous cook successful Abuja’s upscale Wells Carlton Hotel, is celebrated for his smoky jollof rice. His concealed for preparing the West African crockery is letting the atom pain a spot earlier adding water. The different is utilizing De Rica to bring retired the smoky flavour of his dish, giving it “a affluent sensation similar mustard gets”, helium says. “And it besides gives the atom a bully reddish colour.”

Now the brand’s popularity has catapulted backmost to Europe, arsenic Nigerians successful the diaspora question it out. “Nigerians are marque conscious,” explains Tim Szejnoga, an relationship manager for Dutch import institution Unidex. “They volition stay loyal to 1 marque their full lives.”

The 400gm tin cans whitethorn nary longer beryllium disposable successful Nigeria, but they unrecorded connected successful Lagos’s markets each clip a seller measures retired a derica.

This nonfiction is portion of “Ordinary items, bonzer stories”, a bid astir the astonishing stories down well-known items. 

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