About Ariston
ARISTON HOLDINGS is a diversified agro-industrial concern listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange. Paul Timothy Spear is the Chief Executive Officer of the agro concern.
Ariston business interests span a variety of products, including tea, macadamia, row crops and poultry.
The operations of the tea growing units are fully integrated with the Blended Tea Factory ( BTF) for value addition for tea.
The firm runs five strategic business units scattered throughout Zimbabwe. Located in Chipinge is Clearwater Estate.
It has the largest hectarage of mature macadamia orchards in the country.
Clearwater also produces tea and has a small crop of avocados. All Group macadamia sales are centralised at Clearwater Estate; which also produces the increasingly popular Ristonuts for local sale.
The three macadamia-producing estates in Chipinge and Chimanimani combined make Ariston the largest producer of macadamia nuts in Zimbabwe.
The other strategic business unit is Roscommon Estate which produces the world-acclaimed niche red tea Wanganella — in the picturesque Chimanimani, Eastern Zimbabwe.
With potential for increasing contribution from macadamia and potato, which are of excellent quality, Roscommon Estate is expanding the production of these key crops.
Then there is Southdown Estate which is the flag-ship tea producer for Ariston.
With newly installed state-of-the-art tea harvesting and processing equipment, now also replicated at Clearwater and Roscommon Estate, Southdown will continue to produce better quality teas for both the export and local markets.
Currently, over 65 percent of Ariston teas are exported primarily to Europe, and increasingly to India and Africa.
USA Clearwater, Roscommon and Southdown Estates, combined, make Ariston the third largest tea producer in Zimbabwe.
There are increasing plantings of macadamia, banana and potato crops at Southdown Estate for both local and export markets. Lastly, there is the Blended Tea Factory, formerly known as Capital Tea Company.
This is at Clearwater Estate, Chipinge, where value addition of more than 1000t of bulk tea into packaged tea takes place.
Three Leaves and Crest Value are the most popular brands.