Zimpapers Logo

Harare Bureau
DELTA Corporation will spend about $17 million in setting up a new Chibuku Super plant at Fairbridge in Bulawayo, as the group moves to keep pace with growing demand.

The country’s biggest beverages manufacturer is in the process of setting a new Chibuku Super beer plant at Fairbridge with capacity to produce about 337,000 hectolitres a day. Delta is currently producing Super Chibuku beer at its plant in Chitungwiza, but the two lines at the plant, with capacity for 600,000l per day, cannot keep pace with the demand.

The brewer of lagers Castle, Zambezi, Black Label and Lion and Castle Lite, among others, currently serve the entire country from Chitungwiza due to the beer’s long shelf life.

Chitungwiza Chibuku Super plant manager Joseph Takaindisa said Delta was in the process of procuring equipment from Germany for the plant to be set up at Fairbridge. “It’s supposed to start running in March, but it’ll be commissioned in May. It’ll have three quarters capacity of the 450,000 a day capacity of this (Chitungwiza) plant,” he said

“We are already selling Super Chibuku in Bulawayo, but we’ll soon be producing from there. The plant will cost about $12 million and equipment is coming from Germany,” he added.

Chitungwiza plant manager Mark Mudimbu said the demand and volumes for Super Chibuku were growing fast, which was partly the reason a new plant was being set up.

“We can’t meet the demand, which is partly the reason we’re rolling out a new plant,” he said.

It was against this background that Delta is optimising production in Chitungwiza.

The Chitungwiza plant, running at about 70 percent capacity produced 3,5 million hectoliters last year. Delta is making additional investments to optimise production capacity.

Mudimbu said to increase the plant’s current production run, Delta was investing in services that support production such as cooling systems and water storage facilities.