CAMEROON – Société Anonyme des brasseries du Cameroun (SABC), Cameroon’s largest brewery, has officially rebranded its business to Société Anonyme des boissons du Cameroun, replacing the word “breweries “with “beverages “in the company’s acronym.

According to Stéphane Descazeaud, the general manager of SABC, the change reflects more the anchoring of the company in the Agro-industry, and not only in the brewing activity.

With the change of name, Mr. Descazeaud explained, the Socaver and Semc entities, specializing respectively in the manufacture of hollow glass, racks, and preforms (types of tubes that are inflated to obtain plastic bottles); and in the production of mineral waters, will also be united under the same name and a single identity: Beverages of Cameroon.

He added: “The new name Boisons du Cameroun, symbolizes the choice of the evolution of SABC’s activity directly, or through its subsidiaries Socaver (Cameroonian glassware company) and Semc (Cameroonian mineral water company).

In its transformation and its forward march in history, SABC has gone from a company focused on brewing, to a company that today ensures upstream and downstream integration of its activities, to sustainably support the creation of value, the development of other related sectors of an economy that is both solidarity and circular, the promotion of local consumption and made in Cameroon.

(…) With this new identity, we have sought to give our teams and partners, as well as our consumers, a clear and powerful idea of who we are and what we want to achieve. “,

SABC, a subsidiary of a French conglomerate that operates breweries and beverage companies in several countries, Castel Group, has also launched a 5-year investment program to inject CFA200 billion (US$325.25m) into its expansion.

The investment program, to be carried out under the new name of the business, will focus on increasing both SABC and Guinness products in Cameroon.

Specifically, the company will build three new production lines for Guinness products at the Yaoundé, Garoua, and Bafoussam facilities.

 According to Stéphane Descazeaud, CEO of SABC, these three lines will have a total annual production capacity of 2.1 million hectoliters.

The investment to scale Guinness products follows the greenlight SABC received from competition authorities to conclude the takeover of Guinness Cameroun by the end of this year or early 2023. The CFA300 billion deal was officially announced on July 14, 2022.

The investment program also includes an increase in the production of glass packaging at the Société Camerounaise de Verrerie (Socaver) in Douala.

Socaver is another local subsidiary of the Castel Group, which already supplies glass packaging to several brewery companies in Cameroon and abroad.

From 2023, the company will increase its production capacity by 25%, then by 50% in 2024, to ensure that SABC will not lack the necessary packaging for its expansion, said Mr. Descazeaud.

With the new investment scheme, SABC’s overall investments in the Cameroonian territory from 2017 to 2027 total CFA330 billion (US$487.69m), (CFA130 billion has already been invested between 2017 and 2022).

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