It is quite unusual for toothpaste to become one of the biggest revenue earners for a manufacturing conglomerate like Unilever Ghana Ltd.

But that is the current trend in the financial flow of the company. And the reason is that Ghanaians have fallen in love with Unilever’s brands of toothpaste (Close up and pepsodent).

The Director of Finance of Unilever, Emmanuel Idun at a recent interaction with executive members of the Institute of Financial and Economic Journalists (IFEJ) disclosed that Ghana has the highest per capita consumption of toothpaste in West Africa.

Idun said as a result of the high consumption of toothpaste, the Close up brand is the highest market driver in the personal care portfolio of Unilever. He said Pepsodent is also is also holding its own against cheap foreign toothpaste on the market, while frytol and key soap are the market-drivers for the food and home care categories.

“The returns on toothpaste are so good that sometimes I wonder whether Ghanaians have double uses for the product”, says the Director of Finance. Thanks to the IMF/World Bank trade liberalisation policy the local market has been flooded with foreign brands like Anidadent, Ritadent, Polodent, Ciptadent, Friendship, Maxam, Angola, in manner that amounts to dumping.

For Unilever to be making huge profits from Close up and Pepsodent in the face of keen competition from cheap foreign toothpaste is an indication that Ghanaians are really mindful of their oral hygiene.

Unilever’s gains also means that local companies are matching up to international competition. A key ingredient to fighting competition is good packaging and labeling. Idun admits that Unilever spends a large percentage of its overhead costs on packaging materials, a large number of which are imported.

Beating the competition also comes with rising radio and TV advertising costs. Unilever is perhaps the highest spender on advertising in the country at the moment. The cost of advertising is no doubt added to the final price, making local goods very expensive.

Many Ghanaians complement toothpaste with chewing stick. In the rural areas where poverty is so pervasive chewing stick is the only source of oral hygiene. Selling chewing stick across the country has over time become a big time business. Many Ghanaians believe that toothpaste only cleans the surface of the teeth and to fight tobacco stain and remove meat particles one has to use chewing stick. There are real stories of women who have sold chewing stick and educated their children up to tertiary level.

Some have built houses out of the trade, which is still the main preoccupation of many women in the urban centres. These women wake up at dawn to catch travellers at all bus stations in Accra, Kumasi and Sekondi –Takoradi.

Recent information from the Ghana Export Promotion Council shows that export of chewing stick to Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger is growing steadily. Though negligible, earnings from chewing stick and other herbal products add to the growing foreign revenue from non-traditional exports.

In 2003 the non-traditional export sector earned US$400 million for the country. But exports of chewing stick and forest products come at a great cost to environmental degradation. Because of the threat of desertification in the countries Ghana exports chewing sticks to they have banned felling of trees. Ghana has therefore become the only supply of chewing stick to these countries.