Business Reporter
Irvine’S Zimbabwe will commission its $6 million stockfeeds plant by the end of this month while plans are underway to construct new breeder houses this year.

The stockfeeds plant was supposed to be commissioned by the end of last year but was delayed to due unavailability of equipment for the plant from South Africa.

The $6 million investment went towards the building of three silos with a holding capacity of 9 000 tonnes of maize and soyabeans while the remaining went towards the construction of the stockfeeds plant.

Plans to construct a fourth silo at the plant are already underway. Irvine’s Zimbabwe chief executive Mr David Irvine last week said the engineers constructing the mill could not get steel required in time due to unrest that was experienced in the South African steel industry last year.

“We will start commissioning the plant in the last week of February. We invested $6 million on the project and we continue rolling out initiatives to cut costs,” said Mr Irvine.

He said the company was also investing on construction of breeder houses for the company to realise economies of scale.

“We want to continue increasing our breeder production. We want to build more breeder houses. The breeder houses are modern and we expect to get much higher production,” said Mr Irvine.

Mr Irvine said the investment was part of the company’s plans to expand its chicken business and the company got the funding from a Scandinavian-based financial institution, Norsad Finance.

Irvine’s still has the capacity to add two more silos but at the moment their focus is on finishing the main plant.