The country’s largest milk processor, Dairibord Zimbabwe Limited (DZL), on Wednesday said the shortage of fresh milk (Chimombe brand) recently was due to a breakdown of a boiler machine at its Harare factory coupled with power cuts.
A snap survey by NewsDay this week revealed there was shortage of the product on the shelves forcing consumers to use sterilised milk and imports.
DZL managing director Thompson Mabika said the boiler machine had since been repaired and the situation was expected to normalise within the next few days.
“The shortage of Chimombe was because of a boiler problem at our factory and when the fault was attended to on Thursday last week, we experienced power cuts,” said Mabika
“We started delivering products in supermarkets on Monday. The challenge was when we resumed supplies shops had nothing in their stocks.”
He said as a result of the power cuts, Dairibord incurred some losses as fresh milk curdled.
In its financial results of the first six months of the year Dairibord Holdings Limited recorded an increase of 35% in revenue to $42,4 million from $31,3 million attributed to growth in volumes of food and liquid milk.
The group said local raw milk production increased to 4,2 million litres, but was still far from the consumer demand of over six million litres per month.
