NAMIB Mills boosted its capacity to produce food for the country on Friday with the official opening of an N$85-million pasta plant in Windhoek.
‘Food security is for us as it is for Government an important long-term focus,’ Namib Mills Investment (NMI) chairperson Martie Janse van Rensburg said at the event.The group is also committed to fighting malnutrition in Namibia, she said. As such Namib Mills has been fortifying its maize and wheat. Its investment in this regard is more than N$1,1 million per year, Janse van Rensburg said.The new pasta plant has created 65 additional new jobs. Opening the plant, John Mutorwa, Minister of Agriculture, Water and Forestry, said: ’65 new jobs sounds like a drop in the ocean, but when we understand matters in context, we know that these 65 new jobs impact at least 65 families in Namibia.’Namib Mills now employs 920 people, up from 780 last September.The company can now produce 1 100 kg of pasta per hour: 700 kg of short forms like macaroni per hour, and 400 kg of long forms like spaghetti per hour.Pasta Polana enjoys 94 per cent of Namib Mills’ market share, followed by Pasta King with five per cent and La Vita with one per cent.Namib Mills’ production facility in Windhoek consists of a wheat mill, a maize mill, a pasta plant, a complete mix plant, a rice plant and a sugar packaging plant.In Otavi, it operates a maize mill, a mahangu plant and a sugar packing plant, while a maize mill in Katima Mulilo supplies the Caprivi.
