Maravi

Zambian Breweries floods market with 18.9 million bottles of beer

Zambian Breweries floods market with 18.9 million bottles of beer
By Gift Chanda
Thu 27 Dec. 2012, 14:00 CAT

ZAMBIAN Breweries Plc has flooded the market with 18.9 million bottles of Mosi and Castle larger to avert shortages this festive season.

The brewer of Mosi and Castle lager said it had so far offloaded over 1.3 million bottles (5,000 hectoliters) of clear beer from the Ndola plant and 17.6 million bottles (66,000 hl) from its Lusaka plant into the market to prevent shortages.

"We have not received any complaints in the last week and so we believe we are actually satisfying the market," said Zambian Breweries corporate affairs manager Yuyo Kambikambi in an interview yesterday.

"5000 hectoliters have been offloaded so far from the Ndola plant and the Lusaka plant has been offloading as per usual full capacity and for December alone 66,000 hl has been offloaded. So it has been a huge success because we are not getting any more complaints about shortages."

The SABMiller subsidiary, in November, began production at its new US $90 million (K450 billion) brewery plant in Ndola to romp up output following years of continued shortages especially during the festive season when demand is at its peak.

Beer consumption in the country increased 15 per cent in 2010 and was up 31 per cent last year mainly due to an increase in income levels and a rapid growing middle class.

Zambian Breweries, which accounts for about 90 per cent of beer output in the country, said it was steadily well on its way to operating at full capacity at the new Ndola plant.

The new brewery in Ndola will have an annual production capacity of 100 million litres, or 267 million bottles, a year.
"Therefore there is no need for people to panic buy because we are now well and able to meet the demand for our products with the new 1 million hectolitre plant which will officially be opened next year," Kambikambi added.

SABMiller plans to spend up to US $500 million a year for the next three to five years on building and upgrading breweries in Africa to ramp up beer production and meet growing demand from the continent's new middle classes.

Labels: BEER, ZAMBIAN BREWERIES

posted by MrK @ 4:40 PM