President Akufo-Addo commissioned Specialty Beers Ghana (SBL) Limited on Saturday, as part of the government’s One-District-One-Factory initiative.
Specialty Beers was founded on a five-acre plot of land in Kwasi Tenten, Nsawam Adoagyiri Municipality, Eastern Region, to produce speciality ale or top-fermented beers for the Ghanaian market.
The company was registered in Ghana in 2012, but it became active in 2020 and applied in January 2021 to participate in the Ministry of Trade and Industry’s One District One Factory (1D1F) Program.
The factory’s construction began in May 2021, and the first brew test run was completed in April 2022.
Specialty Beers LTD (SBL) is a medium-sized craft brewery with a capacity of 10,000 hectolitres per year.
SBL has already invested in the development of a number of beer recipes that use primarily adjuncts (such as maize and broken rice) to replace malted barley, which cannot be sourced in Ghana, as part of its vision to reduce reliance on raw material imports.
Avnash Limited and Hila Farms Limited, two local cereal suppliers, have been engaged as anchor suppliers of basic raw materials.
The brewery will be the first in Ghana to use the top fermentation brewing process.
Due to the centrifuge filtration system, this high-end brewing technology allows the use of over 70% un-husked grains during the mashing process while ensuring absolute clarity of the beer without removing any flavor or aroma.
Farmhouse Ale (5% abv), Hibiscus IPA (6% abv), Ginger Triple (7% abv), and Cocoa Stout (8% abv) are the four brands that the company has introduced to the market.
The entire production process at the cutting-edge manufacturing facility is environmentally friendly and uses only recyclable materials (no plastics). Furthermore, the company employs cleaning chemicals that enable wastewater (a byproduct) to be used as fertilizer and potassium acetate.
Currently, the company has 20 permanent employees working on pre-factory launch activities in specific areas of factory operations.
It is expected that once the company is fully operational, over 60 additional employees will be directly employed, with approximately 1500 indirect job opportunities created.
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The project’s second phase aims to expand exports to the wider ECOWAS region, the rest of Africa, and possibly the European market through specialized international distributors.
As a result, Specialty Beers Ghana Limited has already obtained ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme Certification (ETLS).
So far, the One-District-One-Factory initiative has resulted in the ongoing construction of 296 factories across the country, with 125 completed.
It is part of the foundation on which the Akufo-Addo government is constructing a comprehensive industrialization programme, inspired by the development of strategic anchor industries such as the emerging automotive industry and the coordinated exploitation of the country’s bauxite and iron ore resources for total domestic value addition.
There are 17 completed 1D1F enterprises in the Eastern Region alone, with 16 more under construction and four in the pipeline.
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