NBL expands capacity

Kampala, Uganda | ISAAC KHISA | Nile Breweries Limited, a subsidiary of the Belgium based AB InBev, has boosted its production capacity to meet the growing beer demand. Onapito Ekomoloit, the Director Legal and Corporate Affairs at NBL confirmed to The Independent that the beer company has added 250,000 hectoliters (25million litres) to its production, boosting its capacity to 205million litres of beer per annum at its Jinja Plant, eastern Uganda.

This is the second time that the company is expanding the plant to meet the growing beer consumption since its establishment more than six decades ago. In 2009, the plant underwent a US$29million expansion, effectively doubling the brewer capacity to 180million litres.

This new expansion means that NBL has a production capacity of 270 million litres of beer per annum with the inclusion of the 65-million litre production plant in Mbarara, western Uganda. However, its rival, Uganda Breweries Limited, has a production capacity of 140 million litres per annum.

This development comes in as many months since the new NBL’s Country Director, Thomas Kamphuis, said in April this year that AB InBev was investing US$22million through its subsidiary NBL in upgrading its two plants – in Jinja and Mbarara – as the world’s biggest beer-maker steps up investment on the African continent to meet booming beer demand.

Meanwhile, Ekomoloit has asked whoever claims to possess any of their adulterated products to report to the relevant authorities including Police and Uganda National Bureau of Standards. He said the company, has lately, been receiving unsubstantiated claims that their products contain impurities.

“To us, anything going into the human body must meet the highest quality,” he said, adding, “It is one thing testing our products in the laboratory and another thing seeing our product in the glass.” He said the company adheres to the highest standards in its beer production to ensure that consumer’s health isn’t compromised.