TANZANIA – The Mohammed Enterprises Tanzania Limited Group (METL), a large, family-owned, diversified group of companies, is set to take on some of the world’s biggest brands such as Unilever, Proctor & Gamble, Pepsi, and Coca-Cola in the vast FMCG sector of Tanzania.
Speaking in an interview with CNN’s Connecting Africa, METL’s CEO Mohammed Dewji said his company’s selling product Mo Extra, a carbonated soft drink, that sold over a billion bottles in 2022 is ready to compete with the brands that have since increased their presence in the nation.
Mr. Dewji said: “I am setting up factories everywhere where Pepsi and Coca-Cola are, and I am hoping that the 1 billion bottles can reach 3 to 4 billion bottles in the next 24 to 36 months. All that I manufacture from soaps, and edible oils to soft drinks are things that are needed daily and that is why I am placed to compete with global brands such as Proctor & Gamble and Unilever.”
“In the colas, I am positioned to compete with giants such as Pepsi and Coca-Cola. You are talking about an economy of about US$70 billion. Now when you are talking of revenue of about US$2.5 billion, then you cannot be in one business and that is why I am in over 150 different product lines.”
In June 2022, Bloomberg reported that the Tanzanian billionaire Mohammed Dewji planned to invest at least US$1 billion to expand his business and take on his business rivals in the East African country.
About 40% of the funds will be equity financing and the remainder raised through debt, Dewji said in an interview at the Qatar Economic Forum.
The investment will be made over three to five years, about 15% of which will be deployed to fund operations in neighboring countries such as Rwanda and Uganda, he said.
Dewji is turned to funders, including the African Development Bank and Proparco, to raise money for the planned investments noting, “We still have tons of money we could raise. We are heavily under-leveraged.”
MeTL reportedly said will spend about US$200 million on a sugar manufacturing project to handle 2 million tons of cane and produce about 200,000 tons of the sweetener.
The company further planned to buy a financial technology firm and expand it as part of plans to get into digital banking, including microlending, to boost liquidity into the market with credit.
The company produces its beverage drinks from its subsidiary, A-One Products & Bottlers, founded in the early 2000s by acquiring several government-owned bottling companies.
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