The Sunday News
Njabulo Bhebe, Business Reporter
ONE of the country’s biggest alcoholic beverages manufacturer and marketer, African Distillers Limited (Afdis) has introduced two low-cost liquor brands as part of its efforts to counter illicit brews, which have flooded the local market.
Afdis director of trade Mr Arthur Kamusoko said the introduction of Star Cane and Star Brandy was aimed at providing imbibing low-income earners with certified alcoholic beverages as well as consolidating the company’s market position in the wake of an influx of illicit brews in the country.
“We have introduced two new products namely Star Cane and Star Brandy which have started circulating in the market. As a quality driven entity we want to serve our customers with the best quality and after realising that the market was flooded with illicit products, which are of poor quality we went back to our processes and looked at how best we can produce a product that was more appealing and smooth, that’s how we came up with these products,” he said.
There has been an influx of cheap uncertified whiskeys, vodkas, spirits and brandies popularly known as “hot stuff” smuggled into the country mostly from Zambia and Mozambique over the past few years. Mr Kamusoko said the company was impressed by the performance of the new brands. The two brands are packaged in 200-millilitre plastic bottles.
He said the company continues to suffer from unfair competition due to illicit brews, most of which is being smuggled into the country.
“The environment we are operating in is unfriendly. There is an issue of smuggled liquor, which is finding its way into the market without paying duty at the country’s borders. There is also the issue of unregistered products, some of which are locally produced and are not subjected to taxes by Zimra (Zimbabwe Revenue Authority) as we are, but since we are not a regulatory authority there is nothing we can do . . .,” said Mr Kamusoko.
Afdis are manufacturers of a wide range of brandies, whiskeys, wines, gins, spirit coolers, sparkling juices, ciders, vodkas, rum and cane spirits.
