The Sunday News
Dickson Mangena, Business Reporter
PROTON Bakeries has opened a distribution centre in Bulawayo, creating 35 jobs for locals, as the Marondera headquartered firm seeks to spread its wings.
Speaking at the opening of the centre on Friday, Proton’s technical director Mr Spiros Tselentis said the bakery was pleased to expand to Bulawayo as the city had potential to regain its status as the industrial hub of Zimbabwe.
“Our main idea for Bulawayo is about growth at the moment and we obviously want to grow as a company within the community and that means more employment at the depot level. We are talking already of a staff complement of plus or minus 35 who are from the city,” said Mr Tselentis.
He said it was, however, too early to talk about setting up a plant in Bulawayo.
Mr Tselentis said he was pleased with the response that they received from the market, although it was only their first day.
“After the success of our depot in Harare we felt that we needed to spread our wings more and Bulawayo being the second biggest market in the country would be our next venture. We are actually honoured by the positive welcome that we received even though its early days,” Mr Tselentis said.
Proton’s sales manager Mr Simba Bodzo, said the company has a range of confectionery products.
“We have four kinds of bread lines, superior white, whole wheat, gold loaf, which is a little sweeter than normal bread, and the seed loaf which is a healthy loaf of bread. We also have hot dog rolls, burger rolls, jumbo buns, candy cakes, hot cross buns, plain buns and biscuits,” said Mr Bodzo.
Mr Bodzo said he was confident that the products will speak for themselves in the market.
“We rebranded recently and with the rebranding we also improved on the product quality. We believe the products will speak for themselves in the market that is highly competitive,” Mr Bodzo said.
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