Nampak Bevcan Opens $160 million Beverage Can Factory in Angola

Angola is the fastest-growing economy in Africa and one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and according to Bevcan, the Angolan market currently consumes around 1 billion cans per year.

Jul 22 2011 --- Nampak Bevcan’s US$160 million beverage can factory in the Viana Industrial Zone in Angola’s capital, Luanda, is complete, with the official opening taking place on the 29th of June 2011.

This is Bevcan’s first operation in Angola (known as Angolata) and the Nampak Group’s single largest green field investment outside of South Africa. Angola is an increasingly important market for Bevcan and the first beverage can production line will have a capacity of 750 million 330ml cans per year, in the future, this can be doubled by the installation of a second production line.

Erik Smuts, Bevcan’s Managing Director, explained that there are significant benefits to producing cans in Angola, including job creation, skills upliftment and state of the art production processes. Local production will also reduce the number of cans that need to be imported for a growing beverage can market. “We are creating 120 direct jobs for locals and are more effectively servicing our customers - namely Cuca BGI (part of the Castel group) and Coca-Cola Bottling Luanda (managed by Castel). Angolata should be competitive in terms of price versus the full cost of importation, but the main benefits are in bringing down our customers’ lead times from 3-6 months to 1-2 weeks, ending their headaches in managing the supply chain, and decreasing their working capital costs in raw material stockholdings, storage and damage to containers,” said Smuts.

Angola is the fastest-growing economy in Africa and one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and according to Bevcan, the Angolan market currently consumes around 1 billion cans per year. “We want to use the Angolata factory to secure Bevcan’s current market of over 600 million cans per year, which we export from South Africa at present, and gain enough market share to justify installing a second line, which we have already laid the foundations for,” added Smuts.

Bevcan has also established Reclatas, its Angolan recycling operation as a legal entity in Angola. Smuts says this was done even before building the Angolata plant. “Reclatas is a partnership between Bevcan and its customers, which will recycle scrap from the can making process, as well as collect used beverage cans from the consumer market. We are committed to recycling and I think our Collect-a-Can operations in South Africa are testament to that,” said Smuts.

Smuts went on to say that the beverage can’s position in Angola, and indeed the whole of Africa, is a strong one. “Cans are the ideal containers as they are robust and easy to transport once they have been filled, especially when compared to glass bottles which are heavier and incur more breakages. Cans are also well suited to selling techniques in the urban areas where vendors place them in containers of ice, from where they make the sale. At the moment, can filling capacity is concentrated in Luanda, but opportunities for growth in the rest of Angola will open up as the infrastructure improves in those areas,” concluded Smuts.