GHANA – Guinness Ghana Breweries Limited, a subsidiary of Diageo Plc has honoured deserving sorghum farmers from the Northern, Upper East, Upper West, and North East Regions of Ghana, at the Sorghum Farmers Recognition Awards.
According to the brewery, 18 deserving sorghum farmers, collectors and groups were recognized and took home an assortment of prizes including motorized tricycles, motorcycles, tarpaulins, and products from the company.
The initiative forms part of its Local Raw Material (LRM) intervention, which started in 2012 and seeks to use local raw materials in the production of its alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.
Guinness Ghana currently source over 60% of its raw materials locally, from a 2012 figure of 12%.
Speaking at the awards ceremony, Managing Director of Guinness Ghana, Helene Weesie noted, “We have been energized to invest in the cultivation of sorghum, re-engineer our brands to use more sorghum as well as innovate brands that solely use sorghum.
“All these would not be possible if we do not have the hard-working farmers gathered here toiling every day to provide us the raw material.”
The company is currently working with over 30,000 farmers across 11 of the 16 regions in Ghana.
In the third quarter of the beverage makers financial year to March 2021, Guinness Ghana posted a 24% year-on-year rise in net sales.
However, the company registered a rise in cost of production, but it was slower than sales revenue growth leading to jump in gross profit of 66% from the previous corresponding period.
Selling, general and administrative expenses in the third quarter increased by 9%, driven by increased spending on sales and marketing.
This resulted in an operating profit of G104.86m (US$18.1m) from the first nine months of the financial year.
Net profit after tax stood at G55.8m (US$9.6m) for the period, representing a year-on-year increase of 171%.
Meanwhile in East Africa, the Kenya Breweries Limited has enrolled 10 females into the newly launched Commercial Graduate Program, in a bid to bridge the gender gap within the commercial department.
The purpose of the program is to increase gender representation within commercial department and to create a pipeline of future commercial leaders within the business.
Commenting about the programme, KBL Commercial Director, Joel Kamau, said that developing inclusive leadership skills at KBL has become more important than ever before.
“Across our business, we are investing in a variety of ways to help our people identify potential blind spots and biases, deepen their emotional intelligence, demonstrate empathy and create allyship as core leadership skills.
“We envision these efforts to continue into FY22 and beyond as part of our ongoing commitment to cultivating a culture of inclusion,” explained Mr Kamau.
The new recruits were selected from a pool of a hundred applicants. The initiative is a collaboration between Commercial and Human Resource – Commercial & Marketing.
