eBusiness Weekly
HARARE – Beverages producer, Delta Corporation recorded a 61 percent jump in after-tax profit to
RTGS$143.2 million for the full year ended March 2019, compared to the same period last year buoyed by growth in beer sales.
Group revenue surged 26 percent to RTGS$722.4 million.
During the period, the beer and soft drinks manufacturer said sales for its entire product range were positive in the first nine months of the year, but were constrained in the final quarter due to supply as well as pricing challenges.
Overall, lager beer sales were up 31 percent on prior year, mostly driven by growth in Zambezi Lager and Castle Lite sales.
Sorghum beer volumes were up on prior year by five percent as demand remained firm, outstripping supply.
“The demand for Super Chibuku exceeded the installed production capacity,” Delta chairman Canaan Dube said.
“There are plans to build a modern brewery at a new site in Rusape in the coming year.”
Soft drinks sales, however, slumped 44 percent on the back of production bottlenecks.
“The division was adversely affected by severe foreign currency constraints particularly after the monetary policies of October, 2018,” Dube said.
“The division was virtually closed in the last quarter of the year due to critical raw material outages.”
In Zimbabwe, Delta is the sole producer of soft drinks under the Coca Cola brand.
Dube said the firm had since worked on an arrangement with the Coca Cola Company to address the soft drinks raw materials challenges.
He said Delta’s associate companies, Schweppes Holdings Africa Limited and Nampak Zimbabwe continued to operate profitably despite economic headwinds they were facing.
Delta, which is a Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed blue chip company, declared a total dividend of 14 cents per share for the year, inclusive of accumulated reserves. – New Ziana
