KWEKWE – The country’s second largest dairy producer in Zimbabwe, Dendairy (Pvt) Ltd is planning to establish a brewery and organic fertiliser plant at its farm along Mvuma road in Kwekwe.
Speaking during a full council meeting recently, Zibagwe Rural District Council Chief Executive Officer Farayi Machaya announced that Dendairy had approached the local authority with plans to set up the two plants – brewery and organic fertiliser plants at its farm.
He however, did not disclose the total investment by the dairy company.
“Council has so far approved building plans for the brewery plant,” Machaya said.
Though efforts to get a comment from the company’s Managing Director, Darren Coetzee proved fruitless, the investment by Dendairy comes after commissioning of a $3.5 million Tetra Pak plant, a packaging machine for aseptic production of dairy products.
The Tetra Pak plant packages germ-free products such as long-life shelf milk and 100 percent fruit juices in a disinfected container in a way that maintains sterility. However, the shortage of foreign currency resulted in the company failing to access packaging materials for its Tetra Pak products, which is imported from Europe.
Dendairy is the only dairy company in Zimbabwe that is able to produce UHT milk that has a shelf life of up to a year. Dendairy produces UHT milk, maas (fermented) milk, yogurt, ice cream and fruit juices.
The dairy company has the capacity to process between four to six million litres of milk per month, which was about 70 percent of the country’s dairy requirements.
Dendairy opened in 2004 processing sour milk sold mainly in Redcliff and Kwekwe, but has grown to supply long-life milk in Zimbabwe and has now moved to milk exports to Mozambique and Zambia.
The government gazetted Statutory Instrument 50 of 2021 to evict more than 1000 Chiredzi East and South families to pave way for Lucerne project. Dendairy is targeting about 10 000 hectares for the project of Lucerne grass used for grazing, hay, green manure and silage.
