Delta Corporation, Zimbabwe’s biggest beverages maker, has blamed Zimbabwe’s stringent operational environment worsened by an annual inflation rate pegged at 300 000 percent for the month of March for the company’s failure to enhance its performance and to meet local demand for beverages.

He added that for the last quarter of the previous year, “the shortage of foreign currency was exacerbated by the limited ability of exporters to access funds” held in their foreign currency accounts.

Total volume of all beverages products under Delta products for the period under review was “24 percent below that of the same period” for the previous comparative period.

The dwindling trend in the volumes of the giant beverages manufacturer, Mupawose said, ‘was caused primarily by shortages of inputs and reduced production to conserve raw materials” such as barley and maize. These two raw materials are used in the manufacture of opaque and clear beer.

Mupawose also said the company was badly impacted by acute shortages of foreign currency used in the procurement of critical spare parts for plant and machinery.

As a result, Delta’s plastics volumes were “down 36 percent on prior year” due to the collapse of the edible oil and cordial sectors that complement the beverages manufacturing sector.

The good news, however, is that the company has enough barley “stocks that are sufficient for the company’s own lager beer production” while “exports of malt will remain low” until the next crop is harvested in October this year.

Of the country’s pricing formulae and regulation, Mupawose said: “Price controls remain in place, but the price freeze of 18 June 2007 has eased with the commission responsible for authorising prices taking an increasingly pragmatic approach”.

Delta, which was last year reported to have been embroiled in a bitter Mahewu production lawsuit for breach of contract by a local company, almost halted production last month citing low and unviable prices for the corporation’s products.

Delta is the producer of family favourite carbonated soft drinks such as Fanta, Sprite, Lemon, and Coke among others and the alcoholic beverages that have brands which include Lion, Castle, Pilsner and Eagle.

Delta last year demanded an apology from The Financial Gazette after the paper published an article that there had been a strike at the company’s Bulawayo beverages manufacturing plant.

The company had to move some of its staff from the Harare plant to bail out the situation as the strike could have dented the firm’s operations.

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