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Business Writer
BULAWAYO Municipal Commercial Undertaking’s beverages manufacturing unit, Ingwebu Breweries, has reintroduced its “Shake It” opaque beer brand as the company augments its market share and operational capacity.
The Shake It brand was suspended about five years ago on the back of foreign currency shortage the beverages producer was facing.
In an interview after a tour of the company by Industry and Commerce Deputy Minister, Raj Modi, who was accompanied by Permanent Secretary Dr Mavis Sibanda and officials from the ministry on Wednesday, Ingwebu managing director Dumisani Mhlanga, said the Shake It brand was reintroduced a fortnight ago.
“I have been in this organisation for three years and when I joined at that time, we hadn’t been selling it for four or five years or so and the reason being that that packaging is being imported,” he said.
“We import that packaging from Zambia, we don’t produce it locally and at some point, the organisation did not have forex to bring that packaging from outside.
“I think it’s been about two weeks or so that we started selling it and we hope we can keep this product on the shelve for quite some time.”
Asked why Ingwebu was not taking the Shake It brand to the export market in the region to further grow its market share and generate foreign currency, Mr Mhlanga said:
“Our product is a live product and that means it only has a shelf life of four to five days and now if you have a product that can only last for five days, you really can’t take it back far.
“For example, if you have to take this to Victoria Falls, day 1 you will be driving to Victoria Falls, day 2 you are distributing the product across the market.
“By the time it lands on the shelve, it only has about two days or so before it expires and because it’s a live product it’s also very sensitive to heat. When it gets very hot, the shelf life is reduced and it’s reduced in a very big way.”
Earlier management had a closed-door meeting with Deputy Minister Modi and his delegation before touring the brewery’s factory.
Mhlanga said his organisation briefed the visiting delegation of the challenges they were facing as an entity.
“But what I can tell you is that what we did was to give a brief to the Deputy Minister in terms of the challenges that we have been facing as an organisation and of course the deals that we have going forward and of course one of the deals is to bring in other products like Shake It.
“Beyond that l can’t really tell you a lot but may be at the right time,” he said.
Ingwebu Breweries employs about 500 people and its volumes almost nosedived in 2021 on account of the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw being closed under lockdown.
Last year, the brewery sold over 40 million litres compared to 2019 when Ingwebu sold over 51 million litres.
“In terms of staff compliment, we have actually remained operating with the same numbers. We don’t really want to retrench people,” said Mhlanga.
“That has to be the last option but at the moment we are profitable enough to pay our suppliers …and salaries for our employees.
“So, we are maintaining the structure that we have and hopefully as we expand and bring in other products, we can get to employ more people.
“We have been operating with about 500 people for the last three years that I have been here.”
In terms of capacity utilisation, Ingwebu was operating at 52 percent solely because most of the outlets have been closed. Mhlanga said his entity has 45 retail outlets that operated as franchisees within Bulawayo and those used to sell between 800 000 and 900 000 litres a month.
Ingwebu Breweries has been into the brewery business for over a century.
Bongani Ndlovu