CONGO – Société Agricole de Raffinage Industriel du Sucre du Congo (Saris-Congo), a subsidiary of the French agro-industrial group Somdia, is on track to complete the construction of its distillery in Nkayi by October 2024.
The project, costing 15 billion CFA francs (US$25 million), is being executed by Congo Contracting, which began work in 2023.
The announcement was made in a press release published by the company on May 24.
The new distillery will process 25,000 tonnes of molasses to produce 50 cubic meters of 96° alcohol daily, amounting to over 6 million liters of ethanol annually to meet local market demands.
Saris-Congo will source its raw materials from its own refining units, which produce approximately 70,000 tonnes of sugar annually from over 12,000 hectares of cultivated sugar cane.
Sugar cane is a significant industrial crop in the Republic of Congo, alongside oil palm and rubber trees. In 2022, the Democratic Republic of the Congo exported US$101,000 in raw sugar, primarily to Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, France, and the Netherlands.
In 2023, Saris Congo partnered with Africa Global Logistics Congo to export nearly 60,000 bags of bulk sugar and three containers of lump sugar to Libreville, marketing some 3,066 tonnes of sugar in Gabon.
The Somdiaa group, which Saris-Congo is part of, specializes in agriculture, processing (sugar, flour, and animal feed), livestock farming, and distribution.
The company grows sugar cane, produces blond and lump sugar, and operates a limestone plant. This plant produces limestone in powder form for improving sugar cane fields and as gravel for civil engineering works.
Additionally, Somdiaa is committed to developing village maize and soya cultivation near cane-growing areas and contributing to their industrial processing.
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