Nestlé Zimbabwe on Monday defended its decision to buy milk from Gushungo Dairy Estate, a formerly white-owned farm taken over by Grace Mugabe, wife of President Robert Mugabe.
”In early 2009, Nestlé was forced to purchase milk on the open market from a wide variety of suppliers on a non-contractual basis,” spokesperson Ravi Pillay said in a statement.
”This includes milk from the Gushungo Dairy Estate, which today accounts for between 10% and 15% of Nestlé’s local milk supply,” he said.
The company said it had witnessed the collapse of the country’s dairy industry in the past few years.
By the end of last year, it found itself operating in a market where eight of 16 contractual suppliers had gone out of business.
It was therefore forced to buy milk on the open market, with Mugabe as one of its suppliers.
”Despite the ongoing crisis in Zimbabwe, Nestlé has not considered moving its operations out of the country,” it said.
By providing basic food products to Zimbabweans, the company aimed to meet the needs of the population, which was mostly vulnerable and disadvantaged.
”Had Nestlé decided to close down its operations in Zimbabwe, the company would have triggered further food shortages and hundreds of job losses among its employees and milk suppliers in an already very difficult situation,” it said.
Grace Mugabe reportedly took over six of the country’s most valuable white-owned farms in 2002 and sells about a million litres of milk a year to Nestlé.
She and her husband, and other members of his administration, are the subject of European Union and United States sanctions as a result of their controversial 29-year rule over once-prosperous Zimbabwe.
Nestlé, the multinational food company which is the largest customer of Grace Mugabe’s dairy farm, is not obliged to comply with those sanctions as its headquarters are in Switzerland.
Switzerland has its own set of measures, but Nestlé insists it has not broken Swiss law.
Eyewitness News on Monday reported that Nestl̩ South Africa said it did not have any kind of business relationship with Nestl̩ Zimbabwe. РSapa