ABL acquires multi-million-dollar plant
The Accra Brewery Limited (ABL), one of the largest and leading breweries in Ghana has acquired a 25 million-dollar plant to boost the production of varieties of non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages.
The plant has the capacity to produce over 40,000 bottles of beverages daily.
Speaking to the media in Accra on Wednesday after a familiarisation tour at the facility, Ms Adowoa Arthur, ABL Legal and Corporate Affairs Director, said the company would inaugurate the equipment by mid-year to augment its operations.
The tour was also to afford journalist the opportunity to interact with management and understand the operations of ABL, now a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch (AB) InBev, based in Belgium one of the World’s leading brewer.
Ms Arthur explained that the new plant, equipped with modern technology gives the company the operational ability to introduce more brands to satisfy consumers.
According to her the new facility has modern robotics for cleaning bottles, designing and labelling products among others.
“With the new equipment, we are able to increase our production levels to meet the demands of our consumers,” she added.
Touching on the Food and Drugs Authority’s (FDA) ban on advertisements on alcoholic beverages, Ms Arthur said ABL was in compliance with that the directives.
Additionally, she said her company was still holding discussions with the FDA and other retailers on handling and consumption of their products.
She said there were ongoing discussions with the authority and “we are working with the timeline as proposed by the authority, hence, if there are any setbacks, management would speak directly with them but as at now a total ban on our products is not something that is working”.
On taxes, the ABL Legal and Corporate Affairs Director said management has complied with all existing taxes and would comply with others such as the excise stamp tax.
Ms Joscelyne Ahiable, the Communications Manager, ABL said in 2016, a new company; Anheuser-Busch (AB) InBev, took over ABL, a subsidiary of SABMiller as a new owners.
She said under the new ownership, ABL was more focus and more determined than before to be the continued and preferred beverage company in Ghana.
“With ABInBev, we are committed and more driven to satisfy our consumers and will continue to provide support to the various communities through our ‘Better Wold Initiative’,” she added.
She said through their ‘Better World Initiative’ management organises series of activities for the communities such as free health screening and it formed part of their holistic dream of impacting every corner of the country, through their business.
He said in bringing people together for a better world, the company provided two communities in the Upper East Region with Solar powered furrow irrigation systems as part of their Eagle Farmer Project initiative.
“So far, we have impacted 15,000 farmers through the project initiated in 2015 and hope to affect 30,000 farmers by 2020,” she added.
Source: GNA