By BUUMBA CHIMBULU
A shortage of clear beer countrywide has not yet been resolved due to a delay in completing the US$20 million capacity expansion programme at the Zambian Breweries plant in Lusaka.
Zambian Breweries in Mat this year shutdown production of clear beer to facilitate installation of new equipment at the plant in Lusaka.
Production is however expected to normalise next month, according to Zambian Breweries Corporate Affairs Director, Ezekiel Sekele.
Mr Sekele explained in an interview that the expansion programme which started in May this year was conducted at the Zambian Breweries plants in Ndola and Lusaka.
In Ndola, he said, production was back to 100 percent while Lusaka was at 90 percent, thereby creating a shortage of the commodity on the market.
“For Lusaka, we started in May going into June but then we had to stop with the outbreak of the third wave of Covid-19 and we had to undertake a number of measures to control the spread of the pandemic.
“That negatively impacted on the completion of the programme. However, Lusaka is at 90 percent completion with about 10 percent more to go which should be completed in the next couple of weeks. Going into September we expect all the plants to be 100 percent in terms of completion,” Mr Sekele said.
Mr Sekele also said consumption of alcohol off premise had posed to be a challenge for the company as bottles were not being returned as quickly as before.
Off premise means that customers are buying alcohol on a takeaway basis.
“So we have seen a great impact, a reduction in the quantity of bottles coming into the plant from our usual almost 100 percent return to about 30 percent. So that is the gap.
“However, we remain resilient and still engaging with our distributors and customers to ensure that more bottles get into the plant. As we go into September, we are going to see an improvement in that area,” he said.
