Zimbabwe’s top grain miller National Foods to veil over foreign currency shortage


Devdiscourse News Desk | Harare | Updated: 05-12-2018 13:35 IST | Created: 05-12-2018 13:35 IST
Zimbabwe’s top grain miller National Foods to veil over foreign currency shortage
Zimbabwe will take delivery of 30,000 tonnes of wheat next week to complement some 130,000 tonnes produced by local farmers this season (Image Credit: Flickr / Picsbyraf)
  • Country:
  • Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is likely to confront serious bread shortages after the nation’s biggest miller, National Foods Holdings Ltd., declared it is temporarily decommissioning its wheat mills due to lack of foreign currency to pay for wheat purchased outside the country. Mangaliso Ndlovu, Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Acting Minister said that Zimbabwe has adequate stocks of wheat to cover the next four months.

The country will take delivery of 30,000 tonnes of wheat next week to complement some 130,000 tonnes produced by local farmers this season. Tafadzwa Musarara, Chairman of Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe (GMAZ) revealed this at a press conference in Harare on December 4. On the other hand, National Foods’ CEO Michael Lashbrook said that there is an urgent need of foreign currency to settle outstanding wheat supplies.

“There is no need for panic buying milling for bread, meal-mealie and flour. All our millers have enough wheat to take us through the festive season. I just want to say with authority that everyone who is in the milling industry is benefitting from the wheat that we have imported as GMAZ,” Musarara said.

A shortage of baker’s flour is likely to drive up bread prices after an earlier increase in September. National Foods said its foreign suppliers of wheat instructed the company to cease to draw down of wheat stocks after the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe failed to repatriate payments. Now, it is working with the central bank to resolve the issue.

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