Beta Holdings, one of Zimbabwe’s largest brick makers, says its new clay brick-making plant in Melfort, 40 kilometers east of the capital Harare, will ease supply shortages in the market and improve its ability to meet customer orders.
The Melfort Plant is part of new investments the company has put into its operations, which it expects to reposition the group into its traditional market leader position in terms of supplying infrastructural inputs.
Beta Holdings also believes the investments, apart from enhancing efficiencies, will improve cash flows and the company’s ability to meet its diverse financial obligations.
The group recently completed a new brick-making plant in Mount Hampden where it already operated two factories. Beta said its newest plant, in Melfort, will be a game changer in a market battling to meet demand.
“Our Melfort plant is expected to commence operations before the end of November this year and it will give us the capacity to produce 180 million bricks per year,” spokesperson Ms Cynthia Chizwina told this publication during a tour of its new factory in Mount Hampden.
According to Beta, its new plant in Mount Hampden will grow output by 50 percent to 4,5 million bricks per week.
“We are happy that we now have the additional capacity here in Mount Hampden but the real game change is our Melfort plant and we are optimistic that additional output from the new plant will help fill market supply gaps,” said Ms Chizwina.
Beta Holdings embarked on the Melfort project at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the resultant challenges posed by the pandemic caused the company to miss the targeted timelines for commissioning.
The company said recently “The net effect of these investments is to ensure that the company pivots back to its leadership position in the infrastructural inputs supply sector now and into the future.
Despite a temporary work stoppage last week, the normal operating environment has been restored. On account of improved performance, the company has managed to address differences with workers at its Mt Hampden factory.
The employees had gone on an industrial action over outstanding wages.
Earlier, BETA had assured employees that it had procured enough inputs to sustain production.
“Management is fully confident that as the production levels improve, so will the cash inflows that will address all the legacy creditors, backlogged deliveries, and staff remuneration.”
Brick supply shortages, which have previously haunted the domestic market due to capacity constraints, worsened in recent years as a result of growing demand from private and public projects across the country.
The coming in of various new players has failed to plug the existing supply gaps.
Beta Holdings said phase two of the Melfort project entails putting in drying tunnels. This, the company indicated, would resolve the challenge of production stoppages caused by rains.
Brick producers normally halt production in rainy seasons as the wet conditions are not favorable for operations.
Apart from brickmaking, BETA is also involved in the production of concrete roofing times and aggregates.
