How the local drink, Chibuku, struck it rich

Chibuku is king of the affordable “opaque beer” sector, which is enjoying growth across southern Africa. As profits shrink in a declining beer market across Europe and Russia, Chibuku sales are stronger than ever.

“All we’ve done is commercialise homebrew,” explains Ronny Palale, who is just about to finish another busy week managing operations at the National Breweries plant on the outskirts of Lusaka, Zambia.

Outside his office, the 24-hour operation rumbles away. Mountains of sorghum and maize are being refined and cooked on a vast and unprecedented scale. A relentless line of lorries passes through the gates of the depot, emblazoned with the vivid white, blue and red Chibuku logo and the slogan “Taste the Goodness”, distributing tens of thousands of crates across the country, as they do 365 days a year.

Palale has the quiet confidenc of a man who knows business is going well. Indeed, the SABMiller subsidiary has experienced year-on-year growth since 2003. He attributes that growth to the changing profile of the people who drink the product.

Originally a hooch cooked up by Max Heinrich, a South African of Jewish descent, in Zambia’s Copperbelt in the 1950s as a cheap way to fill the stomachs and quench the thirst of hungry miners, Chibuku is now shaking off the stigma of being a poor man’s homebrew.

Palale wants the expanding middle classes to keep on drinking from the unmistakable waxed cardboard cartons as their spending power grows.

“Now we get middle-income consumers drinking it. It is something that their forefathers drank in a different form. We want a modern type to drink it, so just made it better and more consistent.”

As a fermented opaque beer, Chibuku has an alcohol content that rises to 5 per cent at the end of its short shelf life of three to four days. It costs 2,500 kwacha (30p) per carton. The “Shake Shake” comes from the need to shake it before drinking.

“It is an old recipe which has been around for many years,” says Palale. “If you drink it Monday, Friday or Thursday, it will taste the same. That’s something that a home brewer cannot do, because he doesn’t have [that control over] the time and temperature profile.

“In the old days, you’d just chuck the maize into a cooker and cook. Now it’s finer thanks to milling process. We added sorghum malt. It gives a better flavour and colour, so it really differentiates it from the old drink.”

The result, says Palale, is a better drink, and soaring profits. National Breweries has gone from making a loss in 2003 to multi-million dollar profits in 2011, with volumes growing faster than those of clear beer. It has an annual capacity of 1.8 million hectolitres and forms a key part of the portfolio of SABMiller, which now rakes in 35 per cent of its profits from Africa.

Particular attention is being paid to the informal, unregulated alcohol market across Africa, which SABMiller estimates to be up to four times that of the formal market, and the traditional beer sector remains central to the company’s expansion in Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Ghana, Zambia and Nigeria.

The brewing giant already has 45 indigenous brands and has just launched the world’s first commercial cassava-based beer, Impala, in Mozambique.

However, even Palale admits the success of an aspirational homebrew continues to take people by surprise. “In the Sixties and Seventies they said it would die. Even the founder [Heinrich] didn’t believe it had a long-term future. That’s why he sold it.”

Its success, however, counters the conventional belief that Africa’s expanding middle classes will spend their money on European-style, clear beers. “You get a guy who’s traditional, he’s an African, and sometimes he just wants to drink an opaque beer. He wants to drink it not just because it’s cheap but because it embodies his culture.”

Already, Palale and his team are working on new varieties. He is particularly excited about Chibuku Super, a lightly carbonated version. Still, he concedes there is a loyalty to the original that must not be underestimated. “It really doesn’t have a substitute,” he says.

In the shebeens around Lusaka, men and women, young and old are drinking from cartons as they listen to loud music. “It is not just for poor people,” says Mwansa Nyirenda, 30, a computer programmer, who is drinking Chibuku with friends under that shade of a mango tree.

“Most people use it at funerals, when you want to get what everyone wants and what everyone will like,” he says. “Some fashionable people come here and buy it and are mixing it with milk, thinking, ‘I’m a bit different’. But everyone drinks it.”

There is another advantage, says Chileshe Chilambwe, 30, a father of three, who runs a small depot distributing crates of Shake Shake to local vendors — no competition from the Chinese. While homegrown Zambian industries such as textiles and chicken farming have been eviscerated by an influx of Chinese traders, who have flooded the market with cheaper products, none have taken on Chibuku trade. “It’s safe from the Chinese. I will buy a cheap shirt from the Chinese, but Chibuku . . .” He shakes his head. “They won’t do it. They can’t do it. This is a product that will always be protected.”

Behind him, men are playing pool, drinking from open cartons, while others load crates into wheelbarrows, ready for distribution.

It has also provided a lifeline for those who have been put out of business by Chinese competitors. Chilambwe points to a defunct textile shop up the road. “After they [the workers] were fired, some of them have engaged in selling Chibuku. [Other] companies have come and gone but this will always stay.”

He is now planning to expand his business. “I’m able to support my family. We are selling lots. I would like to expand and sell more. The demand is there.”