Mozambique: Heineken’s new production line to save Mozambique US$50 mln dollars a year in foreign exchange

The Mozambican government believes that a new production line at the brewery operated by the Dutch beer company Heineken, in Marracuene district, just outside Maputo, will save the country about 50 million dollars a year in foreign exchange which is currently being spent on importing Heineken beers, AllAfrica.com reported on September 10.

The new production line can fill 16,000 bottles in an hour, corresponding to 666 crates, each holding 24 bottles. According to a note from Heineken, the company invested 20 million US dollars in the new production line.

This is in addition to the 100 million dollars spent on building the brewery, which opened in March 2019. Initially the brewery only produced a local beer, baptised "Txila", which Heineken boasted was "specially made by Mozambicans for Mozambican consumers". Txila is brewed using 4,000 tonnes of maize a year, grown by Mozambican farmers in Catandica district in the central province of Manica.

There is no such concession to local inputs in the new production line which aims to produce Heineken that tastes exactly the same as Heineken brewed in Holland.

The Minister of Industry and Trade, Carlos Mesquita, who inaugurated the new line on September 9, said that in the past Heineken beer was imported, usually from a brewery in Namibia. Replacing these imports would mean a saving of about 50 million dollars a year, he predicted.

The Heineken from the new line cannot escape the standards set by the European Heineken, said Mesquita, "and so it does not use Mozambican raw material".

The managing director of Heineken-Mozambique, Nuno Simes, said the brewery is using state-of-the-art technology, and that the bottles sold on the Mozambican market will be returnable. Although this is painted as good news for the environment, there is nothing new about it - the breweries of Mozambique's own beer company, CDM, have been selling returnable bottles ever since the country's independence in 1975.

"This project is a clear demonstration of the commitment of the Heineken group to Mozambique", said Simes.

Heineken is entering a market currently dominated by the CDM brands, such as "2M", "Impala" and "Laurentina". Beer is price sensitive - if Heineken attempts to sell its beer at a higher price than the CDM brands, it is likely to fail.

Furthermore, the government decreed closure of all bars, due to the Covid-19 pandemic has drastically reduced the market for all brands of beer. No date has been set for the re-opening of the bars.

11 September, 2020