Local soft drink maker to start smoked water

Zebym Trading is set to introduce its new soft drink products by January 11, 2018. The company that set up its 200-million-birr production plant in the Legetafo area currently supplies the local market with three products; bottled water, sparkling water and smoked water.
“We have these products out already and we expect our new soft drink products to be received well and become successful,” said Frezer Abiy, Vice President of Zebym.
The new soft drink product line will have different flavors of passion fruit, Habiscus, and Moringa. According to the company all of the materials for the production will be sourced locally.
“We source the products from farmers. We want to be able to source everything locally and in the future hope to also establish our own market to grow the raw materials,” says Frezer.
The company currently employs 55 workers and expects that number to grow to 90 in the near future. They are also looking into expanding.
“We are bringing something different to the market; of course, there are other well-known soft drinks like Coca Cola, but ours is different and we don’t think we will have a problem getting a good market share,” Frezer said.
Regarding issues around the shortage of sugar that recently affected factories who use it as an ingredient, the vice president underlined that it is currently not a problem.
“Yes, that problem used to exist but not anymore; now it is available to us. For the future, we are also developing a way that will solve issues that come with the shortage of sugar, although I can’t reveal what they are at this moment,” Frezer told Capital.
The factory currently has the capacity of producing 24,000 bottles per hour and the next step, Frezer says, is to get another machine that will increase the capacity to 36,000 bottles per hour.