adminSpeaking during a media tour of the bottling plant on Tuesday, project manager Mr Boniface Katsumbe said the state of the art plant was the first of its kind in the southern region of the country.
“The project was sparked by the need to meet growing market demand in the southern region and in order to catch up with first world production standards.
“The bottling line has the capability to run 15 000 bottles per hour, ranging between 300ml to 500 ml bottles and will be capable of producing king size packs in the next two weeks,” said Mr Katsumbe.
He said the bottling line was capable of bottle blowing, filling, labelling, wrapping and palletising, thereby reducing production costs and doubling production capacity.
“We acquired the PET bottling line machinery from Germany which is fitted with syrup making vessels, water purifying machinery, high pressure compressors and a fitted refrigeration system,” he said.
Delta Beverages Southern region general manager Mrs Cynthia Malaba said since dollarisation, Delta Beverages had embarked on numerous projects to boost production capacity which had seen the company performing well on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange.
“This plant will produce a wide range of brands with different brands for future and immediate consumption for our customer’s convenience,” said Mrs Malaba.
She said the project had created 50 new jobs while during the installation phase, scores of contract workers were employed.
“Despite the increased availability of our plastic bottled products, Delta Beverages will not be phasing glass bottled products because they are recyclable and cheap for our low income earning customers,” said Mrs Malaba.
Online Reporter