Innscor bullish on local market

9

INNSCOR Africa (Innscor) says despite a challenging operating environment in Zimbabwe, it sees several growth opportunities.
This comes as the country is expected to receive normal to below-normal rainfall this season, which analysts fear will pose a serious threat to economic growth going into next year.
“We are very bullish about the country, about the consumer, where we are going and the growth opportunity that we have,” Innscor group chief executive, Julian Schonken, told shareholders at the company’s 27th annual general meeting recently.

Schonken said there is a lot of activity taking place in the economy to tap into for growth.
“I know that we may be in a difficult agricultural season, but there are a lot more agricultural and mining opportunities. So, we see a lot of opportunities here in our kind of space, and we see a lot of opportunities across all the business units,” he said.
The company has implemented strategies to mitigate the effects of the forecasted El Niño-induced drought.
“If one looks at our grain operations and trading operations, we have considerable relationships with suppliers abroad and regionally and we will be calling on those to make sure that we have enough commodities to produce our products,” he said.
Schonken said the group will continue to engage authorities on the challenges being faced by the business.
“Threats, I think, are something that the entire sector has to deal with, issues surrounding currency and so forth,” he said.
“I think a lot has been clarified now and our job around those threats is to mitigate, work with the authorities to engage, and have dialogue. We are very much aligned with government policy, which is to try and increase jobs and investment,” Schonken added.
Innscor intends to spend between US$50 million and US$60 million on capital programmes in the 2024 financial year.
Schonken said trading continues to be relatively solid. “We are looking forward to a good Christmas trading season across all our portfolio businesses,” he said.
In the first quarter of 2024, the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange-listed group registered favourable volume growth across the portfolio.
The group said aggregate volumes at National Foods closed 17 percent ahead of the comparative quarter, mainly driven by a strong recovery across the flour and stockfeed businesses.
The Colcom division, comprising Triple C Pigs and Colcom Foods, maintained volume momentum during the quarter under review, with the processed lines delivering volumes in line with the comparative quarter, while the fresh pork category recorded two percent growth.
At Irvine’s, volume growth was concentrated across the frozen poultry and day-old chick categories, growing 14 percent and seven percent over the comparative quarter, respectively.
newsdesk@fingaz.co.zw