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DAIRY products manufacturer Dendairy has increased its production capacity by 150 percent following the commissioning of a US$7 million new processing plant in Kwekwe last week. The dairy company’s capacity has increased from two million litres per month last year to five million litres this year after the commissioning of the new plant.

The new Swedish-made Tetrapak processing plant makes the company the first local dairy firm to produce long shelf-life milk on the market. Currently, the commodity is being imported from South Africa.

The plant can process 7 000 litres of milk per hour for one litre containers as well 3 500 litres an hour for 500 millilitre containers.

Dendairy director Mr Daryl Alexander told Herald Business that the company was on an expansion drive to beat the competition from the South African market.

“Of the 10 million litres that the country requires in a month, half is imported from South Africa, which therefore poses a threat to the local industry.

“We decided to invest in a processing plant to boost our capacity as well as beat the growing volumes of imported milk in the country,” he said.

He said his company was looking at coming up with ideas that will make the local milk industry competitive.

Mr Alexander said they also wanted to increase production as a means of creating more jobs.