Rafa Corporation invests in 10-tonne plant to scale soap production
The new soap investments extend this trajectory by adding large-scale, continuous soap manufacturing to Rafa’s platform, creating an integrated home and personal care production base designed to serve fast-growing markets across Nigeria and West Africa.
NIGERIA – Rafa Corporation, the company behind the fast-growing Rafa Detergent brand, has unveiled a landmark investment in advanced soap manufacturing technology, marking a pivotal step toward becoming one of Africa’s leading home and personal care producers.
The move substantially boosts Rafa’s production capacity while underscoring its focus on innovation, industrial-grade quality, and long-term value creation across Nigeria and the wider West African market.
Central to the expansion are newly signed contracts to construct and install a state-of-the-art Continuous Saponification Plant, fully integrated with a Continuous Vacuum Soap Cooling and Drying Plant, designed to operate at a throughput of 10 tonnes per hour.
When commissioned, this integrated system is expected to make Rafa home to Nigeria’s largest single-line continuous saponification facility and to cement its position as the country’s largest powder detergent manufacturer by installed production capacity.
The configuration is intended to deliver higher efficiency, tighter process control, and greater scalability than conventional batch-based soap production.
Mr Muhammed Midan Rabiu, General Manager of Starium Detergents FZE, stated, “This investment represents another defining milestone in Rafa Corporation’s journey to build one of Africa’s leading home and personal care manufacturing enterprises.”
“We are investing in world-class technology, advanced manufacturing capabilities, and the people who will shape our future because we believe Africa deserves consumer products manufactured to the very highest global standards.”
The new production platform is engineered for flexibility, enabling the manufacture of a wide range of multipurpose soap bars alongside premium-quality soap noodles for downstream formulation.
This dual capability allows Rafa to adapt more quickly to shifting consumer preferences and to tap into expanding opportunities across both household and personal care segments, including potential B2B supply of soap noodles to other manufacturers.
In parallel with the investment, Rafa has also contracted two state-of-the-art Toilet Soap Finishing Lines, each with a capacity of 4 tonnes per hour.
These lines will feature advanced soap-noodle conveying systems and modern automation technologies, which the company says will improve overall production efficiency, enhance product consistency, and increase manufacturing reliability as it broadens its personal care portfolio.
Taken together, these projects constitute one of the most significant expansions of soap manufacturing capacity currently underway in Nigeria, signaling Rafa’s determination to build a modern, export-capable consumer goods manufacturing base in Africa.
Rafa Detergents has quickly risen to become one of Nigeria’s leading detergent producers, currently operating an 80,000-tonne-per-annum powder detergent facility in Alaro City, Epe, Lagos.
The company is on track to commission a second production line before year-end, which would lift its installed powder detergent capacity to around 200,000 tonnes per annum.
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