National Foods partners Govt in souring maize

THE country’s largest milling, oilseed processing and packaging company, National Foods is working with the Government and other stakeholders to ensure that there is availability of maize on the local market.

National Foods — maize meal division managing executive Mr Chipo Nheta said the company was importing grain from regional countries and South America to ensure that the commodity is readily available.

He said this at the launch of the company’s fast cook maize meal and the unveiling of its new package for its super roller meal and pearlanta super refined meal in Bulawayo on Friday.

“We have secured supplies through local procurement. We went into contract farming in the previous season. We sponsored farmers with inputs to grow maize on our behalf so we will be expecting deliveries to come through from those farmers. We expect more than 30 000 tonnes from those farmers and we are also buying from the open market, which is from any other farmers that are self-financed,” said Mr Nheta.

He said to further guard against shortages the company has started importing maize from the region and overseas.

“We are importing from the region, we are importing from South Africa and Zambia and we are also importing from deep sea currently because we want non-GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) maize so it’s coming from Mexico, that’s how we have structured our supplies. So we have a continuous supply from the region and the international market,” said Mr Nheta.

The Government is expecting to import more than 250 000 tonnes of maize from Mexico. It is also expecting to import from Ukraine as it moves to fill the shortfall caused by the severe drought sweeping through the southern Africa.

An El Nino-induced drought hit southern Africa, slashing the output of the staple maize crop. Mr Nheta said National Foods has the capacity to meet the demand of maize meal.

“We have excess capacity for now, we are around 20 percent and we can produce in excess of 45 000 tonnes per month and in one drought year, which was very severe in 1992 and we milled for the whole country so we really have the capacity. If we are at 20 percent capacity there is 80 percent idle capacity so we are able to meet demand,” he said.

The company is looking forward to exploring the regional market buoyed by the unveiling of its new product, fast cook meal.

The fast cook meal is said to take five minutes to cook thus it is meant to save power.

“There are other innovations we are working on and in November or December we are coming with another new product. When we build our capacity especially on the fast cook we are also looking at exporting into the region in countries such as Mozambique, Zambia and Democratic Republic of Congo,” said Mr Nheta.