Imports won’t affect us-Natfoods

LIVINGSTONE MARUFU/TAWANDA MARWIZI

Listed agro-industrial firm, National Foods is confident that it will remain on top of its game despite the temporary lifting of restrictions on the importation of basic commodities.

Government recently gazetted amendments to Statutory Instrument (SI)122 of 2017 to pave way for companies and individuals with offshore and free funds to import specified basic commodities to counter the disappearance of basic commodities from shelves due to speculative conduct by retailers and panic-buying by consumers.

Of the products in the amendment, National Foods produces baked beans, cereals, cooking oil, and flour among other goods.

National Foods chief executive Michael Lashbrook told Business Times that the company has capacity to starve off competition from imports.

“We don’t really see the temporary removal of the ban impacting our volumes as we have our two flour mills operating at 100 percent both in Harare and Bulawayo. We are producing around 20-25 000 tonnes of flour. Given these numbers we don’t see it affecting usany time soon,” said Lashbrook.

He said while the temporary lifting of the import ban was necessary, there was need for government to continue supporting local production to save foreign currency.

“We received a lot of benefits from government’s policy to support local industry; we saw an increase in volumes and improvement in employment [levels]. We saw benefits on local productivity in terms of local farming, I think Statutory 64 of 2016 (later SI 122 OF 2017) has benefits to local industry and the country’s economic growth.

“However, I think with the challenges that arose in the past few weeks, government was bound to act like that, we just hope it will be a provisional measure.

He said the industry was delighted that government made it clear that those with free funds will be able to access goods of their choices which will minimise pressure to producing companies.

“We just hope that the lifting of the ban is a short term solution to help the availability of products in the market especially during the festive season but in the long term we want to see the government creating an enabling environment for the industry to produce locally.

“We have just seen the increase of basic commodities in the secondary and informal sector and we hope these new government measures will help to solve the shortage issues. However, we have close to adequate raw materials to continue with local production,” he said.

Meanwhile, NatFoods has launched a new trucking division called National Foods Logistics. Lashbrook said: “What we realised is that we want to improve our customer services and improve efficiency of the transport system. We brought a further 19 truck into Zimbabwe this year and we have invested a total of $2,3 million to that effect.”

Natfoods expects the trucking division to drive the company’s volumes and cut costs for the group.

Goods have started coming into the country from last week and its effects are slowly coming into play as some shops are beginning to restock with these imports.

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