Things You Did Not Know About Innscor
Most Zimbabwean households are without an Innscor product. The company cornered the market for basic goods. Innscor owns National Foods, the country’s biggest miller. Natfoods makes famous brands such as Red Seal roller meal, Pearlenta, Gloria flour, Mahatma rice, and Zimgold cooking oil. They dominate the snacks market too, with Iris biscuits, King Kurls and ZapNax.
Innscor also owns Bakers’ Inn, which dominates the bread market in Zimbabwe. The company first commissioned a bakery in 1995. Innscor bought Probrands from the Philip brothers in 2016. Probrands has dozens of brands, from salt and rice, to the Royal brand of baking products, and to drinks such as maheu, Fizzi and Bally House. Innscor owns Profeeds, a major stockfeed producer. The company is currently rolling out the Profarmer retail network as it targets to drive product to small-scale farmers. Also added recently is a fish-feed plant.
ProDairy
Innscor runs ProDairy, which takes in 20% of all the milk produced in the country. The company also makes the Revive drinks brand.
Innscor and meat
Innscor has owned Colcom since 2004. The company buys its pork from Triple C Pigs, which is also an Innscor company. Over 100,000 pigs are slaughtered every year. Innscor, bought Irvine's Zimbabwe in 2009, Irvine's dominates the day-old chicks business through Cobb Africa, and also runs the frozen chicken and eggs market. Innscor owns the Texas Meats and Texas Chicken outlets.
Fast foods
In 1987, Innscor opened its first Chicken Inn outlet at Speke Avenue, Harare. Chicken Inn has since become the biggest fast-food business in the country. The chickens are produced by Innscor’s Irvine’s. Innscor opened the first Nando’s franchise, at Avondale, in 1998. In 1998 they open quick service restuarant outlets namely Chicken Inn, Pizza Inn, Bakers Inn and Creamy Inn in Zambia, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Mozambique. Innscor spun off its fast foods business in 2015, listing it separately as Simbisa.
Capri
Innscor bought Capri, the fridge maker, in 1998 and then used that deal to reverse list onto the stock exchange (Market Capitalisation USD70m). Innscor controls 50.1% in Capri through its investment vehicle Skitap.
Crocodiles and gold
Innscor went into the crocodile business in 1993, buying Astra Crocodiles Ranching and Shearwater Adventures. It grew this business to Padenga Holdings Limited, which listed in 2010. Padenga is now into mining and the company bought 50.1% in Dallaglio, which runs the Pickstone and Eureka gold mines.
Car parts
Innscor are into car parts too after they bought Transerv and Midas, the car parts distributors in 2016. Transerv and Midas were bundled into the separate Axia company. Axia is a Greek word aptly meaning value, reflecting the company’s philosophy.
Home appliances
Axia also owns TV Sales & Home. The 52-year-old company is the country’s biggest furniture and home appliances store, with 38 retail sites sitting astride 22,780m2 of floor space.
Distribution Group Africa (DGA)
If they are not making your daily-use goods, they are distributing them. Some have brushed their teeth with Colgate and showered with Lifebouy, then you likely have Innscor to thank. DGA, set up in 1999, has exclusive distribution deals with brands such as Colgate Palmolive, Johnson & Johnson, Tiger Brands, Unilever, Eveready, Reckitt Benckiser, Kelloggs, 3M, Philips Electrical and others. DGA’s vast warehouses: the company a major distributor of imported brands.
DGA owns two warehouses covering 10,000 square metres. It leases another five warehouses sitting on 27,300 square metres, according to the Axia website. So, apart from making household goods, Innscor, through this associate, also leads in distributing most imported home brands.
Innscor owns NatPak
The bread bags used by Bakers Inn? They are made by Natpak, the packaging manufacturer. Natpak has a capacity of 5,000 metric tonnes of flexible packaging per annum and is commissioning a new plant in 2021 for rigid packaging.
