Millenium Footwear looks to regional exports
A BULAWAYO-based shoe manufacturing company, Millennium Footwear is pinning its quest to keep the business afloat by pushing exotic leather products into regional and international markets.
Millennium Footwear managing director Mr Stuart Simali said the company together with other players in the industry was struggling to grab a market niche locally due to an influx of cheap imported products mostly from China and the prevailing liquidity crunch in the country.
“We will be going to Namibia with our products before the end of this month, where we are set to meet our clients there and even get an opportunity to further explore that market with our game leather products made of giraffe, elephant, ostrich, buffalo, crocodile, among other skins.
“One can only win the export market by trading in exotic products and we believe our products meet the standard and quality required internationally. Shoes or products made from our cattle hides won’t sell internationally due to the poor quality of skins,” said Mr Simali.
The company obtained a trophy dealers licence last month, which allows it to trade in game products. It gets its products from local tanneries such as Prestige Leathers and Zambezi Tanners. He said the country’s poor quality cattle hides was a result of improper management skills of the raw material across the value chain.
“Generally our cattle hides’ quality at the moment is compromised first at the farm where animals are exposed to numerous tick diseases, which affect the skin coupled with the effects of drought. There are also a number of detrimental effects in the handling of the skins during slaughter right up to the tanneries. Most of our tanneries don’t have the requisite chemicals for tanning,” said Mr Simali.
Leather Institute of Zimbabwe president Mr Cornelious Sunduza reiterated that exotic leather products were more lucrative on the export market.
“Locally there is a market for exotic leather products but it’s not that much, it’s more lucrative overseas. Our cattle hides are not very bad. We can make fashionable shoes from them but they don’t meet a certain percentage according to the international standards,” said Mr Sunduza.
Millennium Footwear claims its first attempt to explore the export market hit a snag last week as it failed to move an array of exotic shoe ranges for a textile, clothing and footwear exhibition in Cape Town, South Africa, Source Africa.
Source Africa is one of the most important annual pan-African textile, clothing and footwear trade event on the continent.
It brings together manufacturers, buyers, suppliers and services providers in one major integrated event, enabling international and African buyers to view and explore an extensive array of products and services from Africa.
Source Africa is also a world-class sourcing event that supports the growth and development of business, trade and economic opportunities in Africa.
The firm has the capacity to produce about 800 shoes a day but is doing an average of 50 to 80 pairs of shoes a day, depending on orders.