Nigeria's GZI and SA's Golden Era Packaging form aluminium beverage can making JV

GZ Industries, the aluminium can maker from Nigeria and Golden Era Packaging from South Africa have entered into a joint venture to set up a can manufacturing plant in Johannesburg to meet the rising packaging demand in southern Africa.

Valued at R1 billion, the newly formed Gayatri GZI Beverage Cans company will commence operations in the second quarter next financial year, and will churn out 1.2 billion cans per year.

Golden Era's supply chain network and customer base spans across the whole of southern Africa. The new facility will produce two-piece aluminium beverage cans in multiple sizes with the help of state-of-the-art technology. People from South Africa will be trained to operate the facility.

GZI CEO Motti Goldmintz said, "GZI is committed to its strategy of becoming sub-Saharan Africa’s largest packaging-solution provider to the beverage industry." According to him, the partnership with Golden Era will accelerate access to new markets, as it consolidates its expansion in West and East Africa. The new manufacturing plant will enable GZI to produce more than 3.5-billion aluminium beverage cans a year.

"We have an aggressive acquisition strategy in sub-Saharan Africa and strongly believe that Golden Era are ideal partners to help us achieve our pan-African vision," Mr Goldmintz said.

JSE-listed Nampak, Africa’s largest diversified packaging company, has large aluminium beverage cans operations in SA, Angola and Nigeria. Plus, there are many other aluminium beverage can manufacturers in the region. The JV is expected to spur competition among these players.

"Our collaboration with GZI enables us to grow our South African operations and offer a more comprehensive range of packaging solutions to our customers, whilst leveraging the skills and footprint of one of Africa’s leading beverage can manufacturers," said Golden Ear CEO Kishor Chhita.

"We are particularly excited about the highly skilled employment opportunities that this partnership will create, driving local development and skills transfer. This is truly a landmark opportunity, not only for Southern Africa’s beverage industry, but also to exploit our synergies in the rest of Africa," he added.

The companies said that GZI’s West and East African footprint combined with Golden Era’s southern African presence would ensure both parties were well positioned to service sub-Saharan Africa.