Business Reporter
Horizon Ivato Zimbabwe has said it is now moving towards a 100 percent local content on basic goods at its supermarket at the LongCheng Plaza. Branch supervisor Mr Given Nyaumba said the company is phasing out imports in most of the grocery products.
“If you look at mealie-meal, we are pushing more than 10 tonnes per week, all from local suppliers,” said Mr Nyaumba.
He said Horizon Ivato had adopted the Buy Zimbabwe concept to promote goods produced locally.
“On cooking oil we are pushing over five tonnes of one of the locally produced edible oils per week. Most of the products in the wholesale section are locally produced and are moving very well. We need to promote locally produced products,” said Mr Nyaumba.
He said, for instance, Ivato is moving almost 1 000 by 12-litre cases of Mazowe Orange Crush per month.
“This shows that local products can compete with imports especially on quality.”
Some of the local producers are, however, failing to meet the rising demand. But they are trying their level best considering the circumstances. On mealie-meal, Mr Nyaumba said all the products moving in the supermarket and wholesale are locally produced.
Some of the notable suppliers for mealie-meal include National Foods and Blue Ribbon
“Generally, when we opened the wholesale and fresh produce sections our business started to perform very well. If you look at imported versus locally produced products you will see that imports are not performing very well. Locally produced products have better quality and price. For instance, nowadays customers prefer locally produced cooking oil than the imported variety,” said Mr Nyaumba.
Ivato’s approach resonates with Government’s economic blueprint, Zim-Asset, which seeks to promote local companies especially on value addition and beneficiation. One of the four clusters of Zim-sset speaks to value addition and beneficiation which seeks to discourage the export of raw materials.