E-Malt.com News article: Mozambique: SABMiller’s unit may brew world’s first cassava beer

SABMiller Plc’s Mozambican unit said it plans to contract farmers to grow cassava for the company to produce a cheaper brand of beer, Bloomberg reported on September, 9.

This could be the world’s first cassava beer, the company said.

“We plan to engage smallholder farmers and bigger commercial farmers to grow cassava for us,” Grant Liversage, managing director of Cervejas de Mocambique, said in an e-mailed response to questions yesterday from Maputo, the capital. “We are in discussions with various stakeholders on how we can progress.”

SABMiller last year spent $400 million opening new breweries in sub-Saharan Africa, including one in Nampula, in northern Mozambique. In a bid to reduce costs, the company is trying to secure supplies from domestic farmers to cut imports, such as the $50 million of barley brought in to supply its Mozambican breweries each year.

CDM has developed a beer recipe that uses cassava starch, replacing traditional ingredients such as malted barley, sugar and corn, Liversage said. Cassava is a tuber crop, like the potato. Tapioca is a root starch derived from the vegetable.

“As far as we know, cassava is not currently used in the commercial production of beer anywhere,” Liversage said. “The hope is that Mozambique will be the first market in the world to welcome the product.”

Earlier this year, the company said it planned to contract as many as 2,000 farmers to produce sorghum or cassava to supply its breweries.

The initiative is “still very much in the concept stage, but we are hopeful to begin the project within the next few months, as soon as we have ironed out the outstanding issues,” Liversage said.

Sourcing the crop domestically will enable the company to cut the cost of its beverages, Liversage said. The cheapest 550- milliliter (1.2-pint) bottle of beer in Mozambique currently costs 25 meticais (68 cents).

“We are looking to reduce the price of the product to be able sell it below the current price of beer in the market,” Liversage said.

Mozambique, with a population of 22.9 million people, has gross domestic product per capita of $950, compared with the African average of $2,802, according to the website of the African Development Bank.

SABMiller has three breweries in Mozambique with plants in Maputo and the central city of Beira in addition to Nampula, according to its website. The company’s total brewing capacity in the country is 1.9 million hectolitres.



10 September, 2010