According to Angop, the project – which is a Sovena initiative – incorporates packaging lines with a capacity for 45 million liters per year, with the capacity to expand.
In this way, the manufacturing unit ensures the supply of this brand in the country, through local packaging, ending up suppressing imports of the product over the last few decades, writes Angop.
In terms of jobs, the initiative has 18 local staff. However, the number is expected to grow to 50 by the end of the year, as a result of the establishment of a second shift, while, indirectly, approximately a hundred jobs should be created.
Sovena's CEO, Jorge de Melo, cited by Angop, said that the start-up of this manufacturing unit "marks the beginning of Sovena's integration into the Angolan food production chain".
"The opening of the packaging factory in Luanda marks the beginning of Sovena's integration into the Angolan food production chain, a sector where we want to create a system of high added value and job creation", he pointed out.
"This industrial unit is an important milestone in the group's vision of creating locally, in Angola, an efficient and integral production chain that includes the production, transformation, packaging and supply of the company's products to the national market", he added.
Quoted by Angop, he also indicated that "the conditions created at Executive level with a view to boosting local industry and agriculture open up unique opportunities to build a reference project that promotes the revitalization of the Angolan countryside, essential for the effective substitution of imports and for relevant job creation".
The initiative, according to Angop, is the result of a partnership with Orey, owner of the buildings where Sovena is currently located and which provides the company with logistics and operational support services. Among the range of partnerships, it is also worth highlighting the one recently established with Grupo Carrinho, to locally refine raw soybean oil.
For the future, according to Angop, Sovena wants to invest in the agricultural sector, with its challenge in the country relating to the development of agricultural production in Angola.