By Jonathan Mbiriyamveka
The installation of additional packaging plant is on schedule for commissioning in the first half of 2023, Delta Corporation has announced.
In an update for the third quarter ended 31 December 2022, Delta Corporation company secretary Ms Faith Musinga, said the business continues to invest behind the brands and to focus on market facing activities.
“The lager beer volume grew by 17% for the quarter and 18% for the nine months compared to the same period last year.
“Product supply was stable although there were intermittent gaps arising from outages in power, water supplies, mismatches in the demand and supply of brands and packs.
“We continued to operate our production capabilities which are supported by the injection of glass bottle and improved asset care,” Ms Musinga said.
The Sorghum beer volume in Zimbabwe grew by 11% for the quarter compared to the prior year and is up 12% for the nine months.
Ms Musinga said the category continues to benefit from increased brand activities as the company celebrated the Chibuku brand’s 60th anniversary.
“The Chibuku Super Banana flavour, which was launched in June 2022, has excited the market and will see an increased supply once packaging capacity and supply chain bottlenecks are addressed.
“The installation of additional production capacity at Harare brewery is in progress for the commissioning during the first half of 2023.
“There are ongoing efforts to optimize the available PET production capacity across the regional countries and revive the Scud pack to cover supply gaps,” she said.
She said there was an encouraging uptake of Chibuku Super which is being seeded into the market ahead of the planned investment in local production capacity in the coming financial year.
The Sparkling Beverages volume grew by 5% for the quarter and is up 14% for the nine months.
The supply of PET packs remains constrained and will be addressed by the investment in additional capacity which is expected in the current quarter.
However, the business continues to recover market shares despite currency related pricing distortions.
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