Guinness Ghana Breweries PLC has unveiled a new state of the art brewhouse at its Achimota production base worth GH¢145million, to increase productivity significantly.
The brew-house, which is designed specifically for processing Sorghum-based product lines such as Guinness Foreign Extra Stout, Malta Guinness and Guinness Smooth, has installed capacity to produce about one million hectoliters; thereby increasing the productivity of the aforementioned products by 150 per cent.
According to the management of Guinness Ghana, this increased production capacity presents an opportunity for increased demand for local raw materials; as a chunk of the primary inputs for production will be sourced locally.
Managing Director-Guinness Ghana, Helene Weesie, in her address indicated that currently 61 per cent of production raw materials, specifically sorghum, is sourced locally; and with the operationalization of the new brewhouse, it envisages increasing this figure to 70 per cent by 2024.
“This new facility is actually going to have a major impact on the agriculture and manufacturing industry in Ghana. We started building a sorghum value chain in 2008 as it is not a consumable in this country, and started using sorghum for production in 2012 with 12 percent sourced locally. But we have come a long way from there, and as at now 61 percent is sourced here – and this will increase to 70 percent by 2024.
“The year before COVID-19 we had a sorghum offtake of about 18,000 tonnes; pandemic time was less, but with introducing this brew-house we now want to grow that figure to 45,000 tonnes,” she said.
She further emphasized that the current raw materials sourcing programme is working with 30,000 outgrower farmers, translating to around 210,000 total beneficiaries within the value chain. Given these statistics, she said, management hopes to spark up to working with 50,000 farmers and half a million beneficiaries, because it’s doubling the sorghum offtake volume.
Representing the Trade Minister, Deputy Minister for Trade and Industry Herbert Krapa commended Guinness Ghana for the tremendous impact it has made in the lives of many Ghanaians over the past six decades of its existence.
“The benefits of this monumental investment to the Ghanaian economy are vast. It means more jobs will be created in the agriculture, manufacturing, distribution and sale of the products, making for increased revenue generation. Many more farmers will be engaged in the outgrower schemes as well as the value chain players, and many more lives will be impacted positively,” he said.
The Commissioner General-GRA, Ammishaddai Owusu-Amoah, indicated that to increase tax is to increase profit, employment, manufacturing and growth of private sector business; hence the initiative of Guinness Ghana geared toward growth is in the best interests of the tax collector.
