Business / Local
Flour row costs bakery $18k in revenue
15 May 2016 at 14:22hrs | Views
ONE of Bulawayo's fastest growing bread manufacturers, Double Fresh Bakery has lost business worth an estimated $18 000 after it allegedly used sub-standard flour supplied by Bulk Commodities Private Limited.
Double Fresh managing director Mnothisi Nsingo has taken a swipe at Bulk Commodities for allegedly failing to adhere to proper business principles by providing his company with bad and water damaged flour in a period of two months which resulted in the massive hit on the company business.
The bakery, which started operations in 2008 produces bread which is marketed under the brand Triple Fresh Bakery.
He said as a result of using the unsuitable imported flour, the company has lost a lot of business with more than 30 retail outlets from Bulawayo's high-density suburbs having stopped accepting their bread orders, while a significant number of shops and supermarkets have threatened to remove the product from their shelves.
Double Fresh has made significant strides since its inception grabbing a substantial chunk of the market niche from traditional players such as Baker's Inn and Lobel's Bread with its whole wheat bread being the most sort after on the market.
As a result of using improper flour Double Fresh's bread became bad in a day instead of having a shelf life of five days.
The bakery has already envisaged growth through spreading its wings by supplying its bread in Matabeleland North and South as well as Midlands provinces.
"Our first purchase of contaminated flour was in February where we received 600 bags weighing 50 kilogrammes each and they swapped 250 of the bags because it was bad. We thought maybe it was a mistake. We got another delivery on 8 and 9 April.
"We discovered that all the flour was water damaged. On contacting them, instead of changing it, they provided us with a sieve to remove the hardened flour. Little did we know the product from the batch will be condemned by the market," Nsingo said.
He said owing to the usage of the bad batch of flour, the company lost 65 percent of its production and $18 000 in bread monetary value as their product was returned en masse.
Bulk Commodities, imports its flour from South Africa and supplies 15 bakeries around the country including its own bakery in Bulawayo. However, one of the company's directors, Imran Shahzad said the massive rejection of Double Fresh's product lay on the bakery's incompetence and ineptness.
"We supply flour to 15 bakeries including our own and we used to supply Lobel's Bread as well and we have never had any problems save for one incident sometime in 2014 when the flour we delivered to Lobel's had greenish stuff. We rectified this anomaly and returned the consignment to the producer.
Double Fresh managing director Mnothisi Nsingo has taken a swipe at Bulk Commodities for allegedly failing to adhere to proper business principles by providing his company with bad and water damaged flour in a period of two months which resulted in the massive hit on the company business.
The bakery, which started operations in 2008 produces bread which is marketed under the brand Triple Fresh Bakery.
He said as a result of using the unsuitable imported flour, the company has lost a lot of business with more than 30 retail outlets from Bulawayo's high-density suburbs having stopped accepting their bread orders, while a significant number of shops and supermarkets have threatened to remove the product from their shelves.
Double Fresh has made significant strides since its inception grabbing a substantial chunk of the market niche from traditional players such as Baker's Inn and Lobel's Bread with its whole wheat bread being the most sort after on the market.
As a result of using improper flour Double Fresh's bread became bad in a day instead of having a shelf life of five days.
"Our first purchase of contaminated flour was in February where we received 600 bags weighing 50 kilogrammes each and they swapped 250 of the bags because it was bad. We thought maybe it was a mistake. We got another delivery on 8 and 9 April.
"We discovered that all the flour was water damaged. On contacting them, instead of changing it, they provided us with a sieve to remove the hardened flour. Little did we know the product from the batch will be condemned by the market," Nsingo said.
He said owing to the usage of the bad batch of flour, the company lost 65 percent of its production and $18 000 in bread monetary value as their product was returned en masse.
Bulk Commodities, imports its flour from South Africa and supplies 15 bakeries around the country including its own bakery in Bulawayo. However, one of the company's directors, Imran Shahzad said the massive rejection of Double Fresh's product lay on the bakery's incompetence and ineptness.
"We supply flour to 15 bakeries including our own and we used to supply Lobel's Bread as well and we have never had any problems save for one incident sometime in 2014 when the flour we delivered to Lobel's had greenish stuff. We rectified this anomaly and returned the consignment to the producer.
Source - Sunday News
