Africa-Press – Malawi. HS Winehouse – a privately-owned company – has expressed optimism that the introduction and launch of its alcohol brands on the local market will help Malawi to generating the much-needed foreign exchange.
The company’s senior official, Wilkins Mijiga, was speaking during the launch of the products in Lilongwe last week. The newly launched products include CapeStars Frenzo, CapeStars Camaradas, CapeStars Whisky, Vodka, among others.
Mijiga said the brands have been produced to meet the status and class of its local and international customers. Ethanol Company of Malawi (EthCo) is producing the products on behalf of HS Winehouse.
“You see in Malawi, there is a certain class of people that believes that to show that they are living well, they must drink whiskey. However, there is too much fake whiskey in this part of the world, too much fake alcohol. So they pay top dollar, serious forex, to buy a whiskey that is not a whiskey, because most of them are fake. So we decided that tear the rule book and introduce a cane whiskey, cane crafted whiskey.
“So we have introduced that, and I’m happy that most people that were there were very appreciative, because people will not be under pressure to say, I take whiskey, but I don’t want I can’t take anything else but whiskey. We have our own whiskey made in Malawi, but Malawians and the world,” he narrated.
Mijiga disclosed that the products were introduced in August 2023 and that they have been on the market since then.
“We were simply waiting for an official launch like this one because we wanted to uplift the packaging. Because, we want to export this product. We want to export it, first with our neighboring countries, then globally,” he said.
In her remarks, EthCo Chief Executive Officer, Lusubilo Chakaniza, stated that the products were introduced as a private liquor brands concept, which involved partnership and collaboration with WH Winehouse having looked at their strengths as a business and also what EthCo can do to leverage on the strengths of others.
Chakaniza added that EthCo recognized the need to forge partnerships and collaboration for them to survive in business.
“There’s a need for diversification, product diversification. Now, being a company that operates on a business to business model, we looked at the strength of actually involving SMEs and growing Malawi, but making sure, by making sure that we, we just don’t jump on things that we don’t have expertise on,” he said.
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