Nick Jackson
As a company, we do well to aggregate our cane with outgrower cane to produce sugar and molasses for the sugar association. We buy back the molasses and put that into our plant to produce portable ethanol. We then sell the ethanol to industries that use alcohol as part of their process. Soon we will be producing fuel ethanol which could become about half of our output.
We should be able to serve the local market as well as the Zimbabwe and South Africa markets once we get everything ready. In about 2 years, we intend to begin to produce alcoholic drinks at retail level. Our zeal to diversify our products has driven us to set an ambition to become the top rum producer in Africa with high quality aged rum.
Our operation could thrive even more because of the common Southern African market (SACU) that allows Eswatini companies to compete in the region. It will be an uphill battle to fend off competition from more established South African names, but we are confident in our abilities. We will also take advantage of the AfCFTA to trade more with countries like Kenya which are outside the region.
Eswatini will also benefit from our ambitions of creating a big bioplastic operation that will see us produce bioplastics. We will start by producing polylactic acid which is always a precursor for the production of bioplastics. Bioplastic production opens the door for the making of all kinds of great products such as phone casings, dashboard covers, coffee cup finishes etc. The test for us is to transcend sugar production and see what high-value goods we can produce.