Contract farmers supply Delta Beverages with raw materials

Nqobile Bhebhe, Senior Business Reporter
LISTED beverages producer, Delta Beverages, is using more than 1 000 tonnes of sorghum per month to manufacture its newly introduced banana-flavoured Chibuku Super product with the bulk of supplies coming from contract farmers, an official said.

The largest beverage maker officially launched the new product in Bulawayo on Friday with indications showing positive market response.

Speaking to Business Chronicle on the sidelines of the launch, general manager for the sorghum beer business unit, Mr Marshall Pemhiwa, said the firm was banking on contract farmers to provide raw materials.

“We use about 1 000 tonnes of sorghum malt per month and all of our sorghum is sourced locally through our contract farmers,” he said.

Mr Pemhiwa said the company has over the years built a strong relationship with stakeholders and the farming community.

“Sorghum is locally sourced and the bulk of it comes from lowveld areas, Mashonaland Central and Mashonaland West provinces,” he said.

Mr Pemhiwa said the company has an agricultural services team that works together with the farming community to ensure quality sorghum is produced.

“It is a model that has worked and delivered a lot of value, not only for Delta but also to our stakeholders.

“We actually believe that it is part of our very strong corporate social responsibility as Delta Corporation,” he said.

Mr Pemhiwa said the inspiration to produce the new product came from consumers themselves.

In its financial statement for the year ended 31 March 2022, the group said the sorghum beer volume in Zimbabwe grew by 43 percent on improved product supply, market pull and the resurgence of returnable scud bottles.

The category was however, affected by limited access to rural markets and key trade channels such as bars and beerhalls that remained inaccessible under Covid-19 lockdowns and curfews during the early part of the year.

In 2020, Delta completed the acquisition of a 100 percent controlling stake in South Africa’s leading brewer of traditional beer and owner of the Chibuku brand — the United National Breweries Proprietary Limited (UNB).

It was the beverages group’s second regional investment after the purchase of National Breweries Zambia in 2017.

The company said the United National Breweries South Africa benefited from the lifting of the alcohol ban to record a volume increase of 63 percent.

It said the focus is now on accelerated volume recovery by recruiting new customers and consumers, entry into more sales channels and winning the customers back from home brews, which were spurred by the alcohol bans.