Baker’s Inn to ramp up bread production
LEADING bakery, Baker’s Inn, will ramp up its bread production at its Bulawayo factory by about 85 percent following the installation of an additional $5 million plant as it moves to satisfy its market demand in the southern part of the country.
The company’s southern region sales and marketing manager, Mr Paul Chimboya, said the installation of the new equipment had started and the plant was expected to be commissioned between August and September. The installation of the new plant would see the factory production capacity rising from 120 000 to 220 000 loaves a day.
“The people of Matabeleland, Masvingo, Midlands have been very supportive to us to an extent that we did hit and exceed our current capacity and as a result we are actually getting the product from Harare to complement whatever we are producing from here. So in view of that we said for the convenience of the people that have been supporting us we now need to install additional capacity so that we deliver to them every morning, fresh bread every time and also to ensure that we have no run outs during the peak periods as you have seen in the past that there is some jostling around for the product in festive seasons,” he said
Bakers Inn has six depots in the southern region namely Chiredzi, Masvingo, Zvishavane, Hwange, Gokwe and Gweru which receive deliveries from the Bulawayo factory. The Bulawayo market is split into three areas — the Central Business District covering the eastern suburbs and the Inyathi area, Area 1 which covers Tsholotsho going to Lupane while Area II covers the western areas of the city, Gwanda and Plumtree.
“Once we are done with this installation, those shortages will be a thing of the past. We are currently producing 120 000 loaves from the Bulawayo plant and every day we are supplementing that with an additional of 40 000 an average from Harare and once we install the plant that we are working on we expect our capacity to move to the 220 000, that’s a big jump and should take care of all the regions I have mentioned before,” said Mr Chimboya.
The company’s southern region sales volumes have over the years experienced significant growth with an average of 110 000 loaves being sold per month in the period of 2014 to 2015, 130 000 in 2015 to 2016 and 150 000 in 2016 to 2017.
The company has projected to sale an average of 180 000 loaves per month for the period of 2017 to 2018. Mr Chimboya said the expansion of the Bulawayo factory would create about 200 new jobs with additional workforce being required on the production, machinery maintenance and merchandising sides.
“We are talking about a massive project here. We are currently 532 employees in the southern region. For your own information all people employed here are from the southern region and we are looking at an additional 50 percent of the current compliment which works out to plus 200 people that will be employed from this region,” he said.
Mr Chimboya said the company has managed to grab a niche market in the highly competitive bread industry despite a number of new players coming onto the fold over the years, a rise in cheap food alternatives and low disposable income among consumers.
In an effort to cushion consumers Bakers Inn was the first to reduce the price of its loaf of bread from a $1 to 90 cent then recently to 80 cents as well as introducing products aimed at leaving a few cents in the pockets of ordinary Zimbabweans in the wake of a biting liquidity in the economy.
“The bread market is very competitive. We are the market leader . . . commanding more than 50 percent market share. Competition is coming and it’s healthy. We pride ourselves in thriving on innovation, we were the first to moot the idea of half loaf and obviously we launched it and prior to that we had taken the bread from the normal loaf that you knew then into the superior loaves, those with closed plants, then we were also the first bakery to move from 90 cents to 80 cents for the convenience of the customers.
“So I can say the bread market is very competitive, it’s very exciting. We always have new things everyday happening which makes it exciting. We are a very customer centric organisation, like I said when we introduced the half loaf we were cognisant that there is a person who cannot raise 90 cents but would also have to enjoy the freshest bread in the country, we said they can also have half of that at only 50 cents then after that we recognised that there is a family, which cannot feed on a premium loaf and we introduced a family loaf,” said Mr Chimboya.