Delta's 3 Soft Drink Factories Closed, Govt Avails Forex Enough For One Month's Supply Of Raw Materials

Delta Corporation’s corporate affairs director Mr Alex Makamure said the firm received foreign currency from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and managed to buy raw materials sufficient to cover a month.

Speaking to journalists during a tour of the company by Industry’s and Commerce Minister Nqobizitha Ndlovu, Makamure said Delta has closed three factories because the firm has run out of key raw materials. He said the raw materials will be shipped sometime next week towards the first week of February. Said Makamure:

There is a structure that we are working on which will allow us to bring some kind of raw material supply in the next week or so, but won’t be enough maybe until we get to the tobacco marketing season. The order we are talking about will be shipped sometime next week towards the first week of February and will only cover one month. Facilities that we are working on, will benefit our sparkling beverages business which is currently limping. As we speak the Graniteside plant has not been running for about two weeks. If you saw our trading update, soft drink business was down 60 percent on prior year. It’s a catastrophe from that perspective, we are making losses in soft drink business as we speak. We understand that forex is in short supply in the country and this is tough. For soft drinks, as we speak, three factories are on shutdown because we have run out of key raw materials. So for the past four months, we have been limping along at about 30 percent capacity because of lack of raw material.

More: Chronicle