Published: 26 September 2013

KWEKWE based dairy concern, Dendairy, has invested $6 million in the purchase of a tetrapak plant which will see the company becoming the first local dairy firm to introduce long shelf-life milk on the market.

Currently the commodity is being imported from South Africa.

Dendairy's director, Darren Coetzee, said the tetrapak plant is expected to be commissioned in October and that it would boost production capacity by more than 50 percent.

"We have invested US$6 million in the commissioning of a tetrapak plant which will see the company introducing long life shelf milk which all along was being imported. Work is currently in progress and, if all goes well, we expect the plant to be commissioned in October."

"The plant will see us increase milk production to five million litres a month against a national demand of eight million litres per month which will see us being the leading player in the dairy industry in the country," he said.

Coetzee bemoaned the influx of imported dairy products on the local market which he said was threatening the revival of the industry and called on the government to impose surtax on dairy products to allow local products to compete on a level playing field.

He cited the high input and production costs as some of the reasons local dairy products are failing to compete with imported foreign products.

The dairy industry is currently operating at 45 percent capacity, producing  51 million litres of milk annually against a national demand of around 120 million litres. The vacuum has been being filled by imports mainly from South Africa, New Zealand, the European Union, the United States and Australia.

National milk production increased from 150 million litres in 1980, peaking at 256 million litres in 1990 before plummeting to an all-time low of 36 million litres in 2009.  The Industry has since started to recover and managed to produce 51 million litres in 2011 through the ‘Think milk, Drink milk' campaign which is being spearheaded by the Zimbabwe Dairy Industry Trust.

Government has also moved in to halt the continued and disruptive acquisition of dairy farms to save the industry from collapse.

The country has a potential to process 400 million litres of milk per year.
- fingaz

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