SABMiller To Encourage BEE Suppliers For Namibia Brewing Operations

Beer maker SABMiller Namibia will focus on three strategies core to its operations: effectively managing the economic, social and environmental impacts of its business on host communities, Managing Director of Castle Brewing Namibia, Cobus Bruwer has disclosed.  SABMiller has been importing beer into Namibia through Castle Brewing Namibia for over 20 years, already holding a 22 percent share of the Namibian market.

Bruwer told local weekly newspaper, Namibia Economist about the company’s efforts at encouraging Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) suppliers in Namibia, noting the company may consider growing locally, crops like Sorghum or Cassava that can be used in the production of beer, as it plans to start brewing at its 260,000 hectoliters per year capacity by the middle of the year.

He assured of his company’s plan to source production materials locally for its new brewery, stressing that BEE suppliers would be contacted for the materials. He however added that growing crops locally for production of beer will be dependent on results of feasibility studies on its economic viability, but said once economic viability is ascertained; the company will engage local farmers and suppliers to use crops grown locally.

He said further that SABMiller would assess policies and programs of Namibia’s agricultural sector as it affects the supply of agricultural materials of good quality to its new brewery.  “One very important ingredient in the making of beer is water. We rely on large quantities of high quality water in order to make our beer, so water quality and availability are of vital concern,” Brewer told Namibia Economist.

He expressed the brewing giant’s commitment to good water management system, which he noted was one of SABMiller’s sustainable development priorities starting with making their brewery water-efficient.  SABMiller Namibia’s brewery, currently under construction in Okahandja (a city of just over 24,000 inhabitants in Otjozondjupa Region, central Namibia), is expected to become fully operational upon completion in June 2014, and is expected to grow revenue as most of the products already well-known in the country can then be produced locally, thereby cutting importation costs.

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