The new plant was constructed at a total cost of two billion birr.

 

"The new plant will triple the current production capacity of the brewery," Devlin Hainsworth, CEO of Dashen Brewery, told The Reporter.

 

"It's very significant, and it is also built in a scalable way to increase the capacity. That's only the first step there and we can go further," the CEO added.

 

According to the CEO, starting from the very inception of the project to the construction and installation of machineries this new plant took three years to be completed.

 

With the inauguration of this new plant the company is planning to penetrate into markets in parts of the country where its presence was limited.

 

"To some degree we had a limited presence in terms of distribution outside of our stronghold areas particularly in the northern part of Ethiopia, even in the north we were not able to satisfy the increasing demand. So this will boost our distribution capacity, particularly since we will be close to Addis. In addition, we will be able to reach the southern part of the country," the CEO told The Reporter.

 

According to Hainsworth, the new plant will offer job opportunities for hundreds of workers directly and thousands in directly. "Right now Dashen is working with barely farmers and obviously our demand for local raw materials is going to increase so there will be a knock-on effect there. So it will have a significant input in job creation," the CEO said.

 

Dashen Brewery Share Company is one of the subsidiaries of TIRET Corporate, which has 49 percent share and Duet, a UK company, with 51 percent of the share. Established in 2000 the company sold its majority share to Duet in 2012.

 

Tiret was established as an endowment organization in 1995 with the assets that were in the hands of the Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM) after the fall of the Derg regime. These same assets were transferred to TIRET to the benefit of the people of the Amhara Regional State. The head office of the corporate is located in Bahir Dar city, the capital of Amhara Regional state.

 

Tiret Corporate currently owns Tikur Abay Transport PLC, Zeleke Agricultural Mechanization PLC, Dashen Brewery Share Company, Ambasel Trading House PLC, Tana Communications PLC, Belesa Logistics and Transit and the new Gondar Malt factory.

Source : allafrica.com