Bakers Inn expands distribution capacity

BAKERS Inn, a unit of Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) listed Innscor Limited, last week took delivery of 50 distribution trucks from a local car dealership, ZIMOCO, as the country’s bread maker seeks to grow its supplier network across the country.

This comes as Bakers Inn, Zimbabwe’s largest bread maker, intends to grow bread production to 1 million loaves per day from the current 450 000, hence the need to grow its fleet to complement the impending growth in the company.

The bread maker said it has been unable to service marginal areas in the country owing to a dwindling fleet, a position to be redressed through the acquisition of the 50 Mitsubishi FUSO FE7-136 Commercial Trucks from ZIMOCO.

The FUSO FE7-136 is a four tonne, three seater, 3, 9 litre diesel engine capable of carrying up to 4 000 loaves per truckload.

Baker’s Inn’s existing fleet had 256 trucks which were used for various operations and the fleet is to be gradually upgraded by the introduction of the new Fuso trucks.

While receiving the fleet at a handover ceremony in Harare, Bakers Inn chief operating officer Benjamin Mavros said the deal with ZIMOCO was a critical move as the company seeks to widen its distributing network to the underserved areas of the country.

He said the delivery of the new fleet will enhance the company’s ability to provide more loaves per kilometer and ensure that every family gets fresh bread on a daily basis.

“ZIMOCO put together a fantastic deal for us, this is a great day as we take ownership of 50 brand new trucks, I thank our partners Innscor Africa for continued investment and belief in building our country Zimbabwe.

“It is with huge thanks that we have identified a partner in ZIMOCO and Daimler Trucks Southern Africa to provide a distribution solution to carry our bread to all corners of the country and ensure that we continue to give the people of Zimbabwe the best possible access to freshly baked bread every day,” said Mr Mavros.

Adding that, “The vehicles are important to us because we see the population of the country growing, there are more mouths to feed across the country unfortunately right now with our existing fleet we cannot give our customers the very best service and access to our product, so with the introduction of these new vehicles we are hoping we will be able to get our product to the marginal areas of our country we have not been able to access previously.”

ZIMOCO managing director Bob Crossley noted that the Bakers Inn deal was important despite taking an extended time to be consummated, but through collaboration with Daimler Trucks and Buses Southern Africa (DTBSA) the company had managed to bring the deal to fruition.

Mr Crossley highlighted that there was visible momentum in the motor distribution industry in the aftermath of the Covid-19 ravages, given that many companies were seeking to recoup and start normal operations.

“Any deal at the moment in Zimbabwe is a good deal and we are very pleased, we have been working on this deal for the past five years, to us a deal of this size along with FUSO trucks is important and Daimler trucks South Africa as well.”

“It has been challenging for everybody and Zimbabwe as a country generally due to Covid19, but things are starting to pick up and confidence is coming back, people want to replace their fleets that probably have been dormant for quite a while, so I think it is getting better,“ said Mr Crossley.

Daimler Trucks and Buses Southern Africa (DTBSA) president and chief executive officer Michael Dietz said he was fascinated by the scale of the transaction between ZIMOCO and Bakers Inn, further appreciating the growing appetite for Daimler products in Zimbabwe.

“In the name of the entire Daimler group globally we thank you for giving us the trust and the confidence of using our trucks,” said Mr Dietz.

In 2019, ZIMOCO scooped three awards after coming tops in the Daimler Trucks and Buses Southern Africa awards for recording best sales for the year 2018, outperforming fellow Southern African distributing companies in countries including Namibia, Zambia, Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, Malawi and Mozambique excluding South Africa. ZIMOCO scooped the overall winner in the dealer of the year best sales in FUSO general distributorship, best sales performance category general distributor Mercedes trucks.-The Herald