Innscor Africa Limited says it is highly supportive of the Government’s vision to transform Zimbabwe into an upper middle-income status by 2030 and remains bullish about the medium to long-term prospects of the economy.
The business is a focused group of light manufacturing businesses that, together with various strategically integrated agricultural operations, produces a number of Zimbabwe’s brands in the consumer staple product space.
This comes after Innscor recently migrated its shares from the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange to the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange in pursuit of opportunities offered by the US dollar-denominated exchange which suits its growth and expansion strategy.
“It is against the backdrop of the Government’s forward-thinking policies that business people have the confidence to continue on our significant investment pipeline of new and exciting projects, bringing in world-class technologies and products to Zimbabwe.
“We are also creating more job opportunities for Zimbabweans and supporting our Government in its pursuit of expanding import substitution opportunities,” Mr Julian Schonken, the group’s chief executive, said at the company’s VFEX listing recently. He said for the financial year to June 2022, the group had completed a US$71 million investment and is now focused on a further investment pipeline of US$56 million in the current financial period ending June 2023.
“This will bring our total investment to around $127 million for the 2022 and 2023 financial periods,” he said.
Mr Schonken said the group will continue to innovate across its businesses and ensure modern technologies are employed to underpin value creation.
“We remain steadfast in our responsibility to the nation. We look forward to developing Zimbabwe’s most natural resource base, the human capital.
“Already, we support over 11 000 employees and we look forward to adding this number as we pursue our strategy,” he said.
He said the company was proud to be associated with the Second Republic economic transformation programme and will endeavor to play its part in rebuilding the country’s economy.
“In the words of President Mnangagwa, ‘Nyika inovakwa nevene vayo’, brick by brick, and ensuring Zimbabwe’s prosperity,” said Mr Sckonken.
The chief executive officer said the group understands as a food producer the need to support agriculture.
He said that in this regard, the company is supporting various contract schemes to enhance production of key commodities required for the production of critical food in Zimbabwe.
“We have 34 000 hectares of contract farming across in Zimbabwe covering maize, soyabeans, wheat and sorghum.
“We will enhance and increase contract farming as this is key in our raw material supply,” he said.
Some of the headline investments the group has been undertaking include construction of a new state-of-the-art bakery in Bulawayo at US$22 million.
The bakery operation in Harare also continues to receive significant investments in automation of production lines with further investments of US$3 million.
The group is also recapitalising the bread delivery fleet through a US$12 million investment and will result in delivery of a new fleet of trucks to ensure the bread is delivered efficiently to all corners of the country daily. Subsidiary National Foods is undertaking numerous investment projects under the US$32 million investment fund.
This includes the US$6 million flour mill in Bulawayo, US$13 million investment in biscuit and pasta production facilities. – The Herald
