Angolan town makes spectacular recovery as beer starts flowing
April 15, 2004
Catumbela, Angola - A humble southern Angolan town, whose industry collapsed during the civil war, has a new lease on life thanks to cheap beer, which is a sure bet in the tropics.
Like the rest of the coastal Benguela province, Catumbela escaped the worst of Angola's 27-year conflict, but its once lucrative sugar and vegetable oil production did not survive the struggling war-time economy.
Now the Soba brewery, majority owned by French family firm BGI Castel, has beaten all targets and sparked knock-on investment after two years of producing the popular Cuca beer.
"We've witnessed the rebirth of the small town of Catumbela," says Jacques Gillet, the brewery's director.
"I've really seen things moving here. The economy is really starting to take off.
"Yes, this is just one factory but you can really see its impact. After all, we started from zero."
With a modest initial target to reach a monthly output of 20 000 hectolitres in three years, production has exceeded Gillet's wildest expectations, helped by the fact that its product undercuts expensive imports.
"By October last year we had reached the volume planned for the end of this year. We had to knock down some walls to build a second bottling line," he says.
The R176 million factory broke even last year - a year earlier than planned - and Gillet has raised this year's production target by 50 percent.
"Our new objective for this year is to bottle 30 000 hectolitres a month," he says.
The plant provides work for about 300 local people, and even basic bottling staff take home four times the country's minimum monthly wage of about R300.
The knock-on benefits have proliferated.
"When I arrived, Catumbela was a ghost town. But now businesses are opening, services are being put into place - things like hairdressers, carpenters, locksmiths and bars - all this in just two years," Gillet says.
Cuca was southern Angola's most popular beer until its huge Huambo factory was destroyed in the war. A Luanda plant remained its sole producer, but the trademark lived on as far afield as Benguela.
"There had been no Cuca beer produced here in 20 years, but in Benguela you would see Cuca signs above some buildings.
"The Cuca brand was a memory. We knew that the fame of the beer still existed and we knew that consumption of other beers was still very large in the area."
With choice restricted to more expensive imported beer arriving via the province's Lobito port from Portugal and South Africa, Soba spotted a niche in the market for a cheaper local brew.
"We make beer that Africans in general like. It's light and fresh. Angolans don't like strong beer because they like to drink lots of it," he says.
"But the purchasing power of Angolans in the south is very weak, even compared with Luanda. With our low production costs our prices are much lower than imported beer," he says.
A case of 24 bottles of Cuca sells for 680 kwanzas (R75), while its biggest competitor, the Portuguese beer Cristal, costs about 1 100 kwanzas.
Soba has succeeded despite a raft of problems ranging from lack of water and electricity to difficulties in finding trained personnel - a problem it has solved with in-house training.
The "Catumbela adventure", as Gillet calls it, has given Soba confidence to contemplate expanding beyond its existing markets of Benguela, Huambo and Huila provinces.
"We could go to other regions - even if there aren't always huge populations present in some of those areas," Gillet says.
With a bottling deal from Coca-Cola starting this month and a plan to produce Portugal's Sagres beer by the end of the year, Gillet is looking forward to a bright future. - Reuters
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