Nampak, a Johannesburg-based company has acquired a factory in Nigeria that will be converted to glass-bottle manufacturing plant so as to fill the growing demand for packaged consumer goods and bottled drinks in the country.
CEO Andre de Ruyter said “Africa is the story for us. People talk about Latin America, they talk about India, China or other emerging markets, but we think the opportunity that we’ve got in Africa is so big and this is what we know we can do well.”
He explained that there is a youth bulge of people reaching drinking age in Nigeria and producing glass bottles and cans ‘make a lot of sense.’
He added that Nampak is expanding beyond South Africa to help reverse declining profit margins in its home market, where it is cutting costs.
He added that the company will consider expanding its can production by doubling capacity in Nigeria and looking at a potential third can line in Angola.
He said “Beverage cans are a fairly new innovation. Previously it was all returnable glass bottles, which were in some instances recycled up to 30 times. So you have this old, scuffed bottle and the new, shiny fresh can with a logo.”