Unilever injects Sh18bn into Njombe tea factory

Iringa. Unilever Tea Tanzania Limited (UTT) has invested a total of Sh18 billion in setting up a state-of-the-art tea processing factory at Njombe, the company said here yesterday.

The UTT’s Njombe factory manager, Mr Alawi Mdee, told journalists who visited tea farmers in Mufindi, Iringa with the aim of learning some new developments in the growing of the cash crop, that after raising farmers’ incomes in Mufindi, the company now wants to replicate the same in Njombe.

“A total of Sh18 billion was spent in building UTT’s Njombe factory…The factory was commissioned in March, 2018…It will be receiving 70 per cent of its green leaf from small-scale farmers. We want to build on the Mufindi experience,” he said.

The money, he said, does not include what the company has invested in its 400-hectare Njombe estate, which provides the remaining 30 per cent of the factory’s green leaf requirements.

According to Mr Alawi, the benefits of quality leaves go back to the small scale farmer.

To achieve the required tea leaf quality and deliver benefits to the farmers, the UTT Tanzania managing director, Mr Ashton Eastman, said the company was working with the Njombe Outgrowers Services Company (NOSC).

NOSC is funded by the East Africa Trade Initiative (EATI), the latter being set up with funds from the Wood Foundation Africa and Gatesby Foundation.

UTT and EATI have invested and come up with the Njombe Outgrowers Services Company.

Through the NOSC, said Mr Eastman, Unilever was helping the government to develop cooperative structures.

“The goal is to ensure that these cooperatives will ultimately become knowledgeable and financially capable to be self-sufficient,” he said.