Soft drinks earn hard cash

Buying locally manufactured goods and services is a recognised contributor to job retention and job creation. 

Mzolisi Dubula (42) from Ezibeleni township in Queenstown in the Eastern Cape works for Twizza, a local brand.

It produces a wide range of carbonated soft drinks, sparkling water and still water. Its main plant is in Komani Industrial Park in Queenstown and it has  branches in Middelburg, in Mpumalanga, and Cape Town in the Western Cape.

“I started working for Twizza in December 2013. Working for the company has been an eye-opening experience because I have developed from being an operator to a supervisor, and now I am the production filling unit manager at the company,” said Dubula.

Nine family members directly depend on him for financial support.

“I take pride in knowing that our product is out there and it competes with the bigger brands,” he said. 

Chief Financial Officer of the company Nico de Jager said Twizza was established in 2003 by Ken Clark, who had stumbled upon soft drink manufacturing equipment.

He said in the early years the company had under ten employees and produced 2 000 litres of fresh milk a day, which it supplied to a local cheese factory.

Today the company employs close to 1 000 people in three of its plants.

“We believe that for every person working at our company, we support about 10 other people through that person,” he added.

He said the Twizza factory’s state-of-the-art equipment can produce 23 300 bottles per day. Twizza is distributed in South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia, Botswana and Mozambique.

Did you know?

Proudly SA is the country’s official buy local advocacy campaign, partly funded by the Department of Trade and Industry. 

 To sign up for membership, visit www.proudlysa.co.za or call 011 327 7778.