Zambian Breweries invests additional $30m at its Ndola plant
ZAMBIAN Breweries has completed the construction of the US$30 million state-of-art additional packaging line for its Ndola plant and testing of machinery is expected to commence next month.
With the new investment, Zambian Breweries will be producing one million litres of Eagle Larger beer, bringing the total litres produced annually to 1.8 million.
Company director corporate affairs, Ezekiel Sekele, said as of October this year, Zambian Breweries had started producing and testing the machinery to make sure everything was working well before it could go into full swing.
"This year our Board of Director approved an additional expenditure amounting to US$30 million, this project’s construction works started in March and by October this year the construction of the new additional packaging line was completed "However what we are doing from October to early January, we will be testing so that we ensure that before we go full swing everything is 100 per cent, so all the cleaning process to ensure that we are 100 per cent perfect so that we can be certified," Mr Sekele said.
Mr. Sekele explained in an interview that the new equipment which was a second line would be packaging 52, 000 bottles of Eagle Larger per hour from the 40, 000 to 42, 000 which were currently being produced from the old line.
Mr Sekele said the coming on board of the new packaging line would bring more benefits both to Government through taxes and the farmers who supplied the raw material (cassava).
He said the company had increased the number of cassava farmers to 4, 000 from 2, 000 farmers previously who supply the commodity for the production of the Eagle Larger.
Mr. Sekele explained that the company had bought 3,500 tonnes of cassava from the farmers this year.
"I would like to commend the Government for putting in the right policies that have seen the growth in the industry particularly in the last few years. What is happening at our Zambian Breweries Ndola plant is a testimony to a perfect model of Public Private Partnership were a number of stakeholders have come together," Mr. Sekele said.