admin
SURFACE Investments, potentially the country’s largest cooking oil manufacturer, will this month launch a new brand of cooking oil.
Pure Drop cooking oil, to be extracted from soya beans, will add to the existing Golden Glow brand made from cotton seed. Surface Investments chief executive officer Mr Sylvester Mangani said the company was currently serving about 40 percent of the local cooking oil market.
“We will be launching a new brand of cooking oil called Pure Drop in June to fill the existing gap on the market following the introduction of 25 percent duty on imported cooking oil. We hope Government will maintain the tax to protect the local industry,” he said.
Surface Investments production executive Rudraksh Somani said with the introduction of Pure Drop, the oil processing firm was targeting about 80 percent of the cooking oil market by 2014.
“We should be able to supply between 50 and 60 percent of the local market by year end and we hope to increase our market share to 80 percent by end of next year,” he said.
The company also announced that it will launch new bottle making and filling line in September in pursuit of plans to ramp up production. The plant will have the capacity to fill 500 cartons of oil per hour.
Zimbabwe has the crushing capacity of 200 000 tonnes of oil seed per annum, with Surface Investments alone able to crush 120 000 tonnes. —New Ziana.
Online Reporter
Bongani Ndlovu