Kenya: East African Breweries invests to produce more cheap beer

East African Breweries, the region's largest company by market capitalisation, said on July 12 that it was investing in additional machinery to increase output of one of its low-cost beers.

Ken Kariuki, the director of external affairs, said on Monday that the firm was spending 1 billion shillings (R87.90 million) to raise production of Senator Keg, a year and a half after its initial launch, in response to increased demand following the deaths of at least 48 people in the Machakos district south of Nairobi last month from drinking illicit alcohol.

"What we are doing now is to up our capacity as a result of the need that we are seeing in the market whereby people have died," Kariuki said. "We know that we have to provide a credible alternative as quickly as possible. This is a brand that has already been in the market."

More than half of Kenya's 30 million population lives on less than a dollar a day and those wishing to drink alcohol struggle to afford most beers in the market, which cost between 65 shillings and 100 shillings per bottle.

But Kenyans say that after the Machakos tragedy scared off many drinkers, some were now looking for a safe and affordable drink.

"Obviously, there is a huge awareness of Senator given the recent deaths and we are not able to meet the demand as of right now, hence the decision to invest 1 billion shillings in the purchase of a line to be able to up our production capacity," he said.
East African Breweries is majority owned by Britain's Diageo and has a market value of about $1.275 billion (R8.585 billion).