The ManicaPost
Ray Bande
Senior Reporter
Following a 14-year hiatus from the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, the Tanganda Tea Company Limited has grown to become a diversified agribusiness.
On February 3 this year, the company relisted on the ZSE where it had delisted in 2008.
Tanganda has since completed a retooling turnaround process that has given the business a new outlook.
To date, avocados and macadamia nuts, among other things, have been added to the company’s product portfolio.
Tanganda has been steadily growing over the years.
The company, which started operations in the 1920s as a tea growing experiment, has the country’s biggest hectarage under tea at approximately 2 106 hectares, avocados 458ha, macadamia 850ha and coffee 185ha.
Speaking to journalists from different media organisations during a tour of the company’s Mutare processing plant as well as lush green estates in Chipinge, finance director, Mr Henry Nemaire said there have been significant changes in the operations of Tanganda Tea Company Limited from 2008 to date.
“Macadamia production started in 2011 and volumes have since improved. Avocado production commenced in 2016 and there has been an increase in production as well since more and more trees are maturing,” he said.
Mr Nemaire also spoke about the developments in the company’s beverage division.
On the trendy machinery that now runs round the clock in the company’s production factory in Mutare, Mr Nemaire said most of the equipment was imported from Europe.
“New modern tea packaging machinery was procured from Germany and Italy for the Mutare factory,” he said.
The story of Tanganda Tea Company Limited’s revitalisation does not end there.
The vibrant and diversified agribusiness has also taken steps to cushion itself from the biting power outages that have negatively affected businesses across the country in recent years.
To company intends to install a 7,5 Megawatt solar plant to power its Mutare factory.
Three solar plants have already been completed, including a 1,8MW plant at Ratelshoek, Chipinge, another one at Tingamira (1,6MW) and at Jersey (2MW).
“We also intend to expand this solar project to our Mutare plant so that we are covered in terms of power efficiency and production costs,” said Mr Nemaire.
For avocado production, Tanganda is producing the Hass variety.
“A modern two-line avocado perk shed was constructed and is processing all the fruit and assisting other avocado producers from Chipinge.
A macadamia processing centre was also constructed and it has the capacity to process 2 000 tonnes into dried, graded and bagged nut-in-shell.
