Many investment advisors have time and again said investing in the food industry is a good business because food is a basic need. The logic is simple- an average human being needs at least a meal a day to survive- and they will wake up the next day feeling like they never ate the previous day.
So probably, when Hajj Omar Ahmed Mandela, the Founder and Chairman of the Mandela Group, decided to diversify into Mandela Millers, he was working on this basic wisdom.
Located in Busega, on the outskirts of Kampala City, Mandela Millers is a wheat and maize milling company. It makes a range of wheat and maize products, that include wheat and maize flour, under the Supreme brand.
Mandela Millers has installed, Belgian-made equipment with an installed capacity to mill 300 tonnes per day of wheat and 48 tonnes of maize flour per day. Most of the equipment at the state-of-the-art facility was manufactured and installed by Silo Construction and Engineering (SCE), a Belgian company- typical Mandela style of going only for the best.
The company’s products, are made under the Supreme brand. Supreme home-baking flour comes in 2-kilogram and 10-kilogram packages while Supreme maize flour comes in 2, 5, 10, 25 and 50-kilogram packaging. Mandela Millers also sells white maize grains, maize bran, bakers flour, wheat pollard and wheat bran.
Figures obtained by CEO East Africa Magazine, show that Mandela Millers, which was registered in July 2016, but started operating in December 2018, had by 2019 already picked up sales turnover of UGX77.7 billion. It however made a loss of UGX3.7 billion that year.
In 2020, turnover more than doubled, reaching UGX180 billion. The business also became profitable within a record two years, making UGX6.6 billion in net profit. In 2021, turnover increased marginally to UGX185.6 billion with UGX5.5 billion in net profit.
Mandela Millers is now the second-highest-grossing enterprise within the Mandela Group and the most profitable.
City Oil which grossed UGX200.3 billion, with a net profit of UGX2.1 billion in 2021 is the largest Group company in sales turnover. Mandela Auto Spares which deals in assorted car parts, as well as tyres, is in the third spot, with a turnover of UGX130.3 billion in 2021. It however made a loss of UGX3.8 billion.
Cafe Javas, on the other hand, grossed UGX33.1 billion and a profit of UGX2.1 billion- an 85% increase from the UGX1.1 billion, it made in 2020.
At UGX185.6 billion in turnover, Mandela Millers in 2021 turned over 66% of Bakhresa Grain Milling (Azam) business, despite the fact that the latter has been in the market for more than 10 years. Bakhresa in 2021, turned over UGX283.2 billion and a net profit of UGX18.8 billion, according to our sources.
Bakhresa is a member of the out-of-Tanzania Bakhresa Grou and has an installed wheat milling capacity of 1,100 tonnes per day and a wheat storage capacity of 39,700 tonnes.
Mandela Millers has also already overtaken other older companies in the business, such as Engaano Millers who in 2021, turned over UGX107.7 billion and a net profit of UGX2.6 billion.
We could not reach Mandela Group’s Founder & Chairman on phone, but the company was one of the biggest suppliers to the Covid-19 relief efforts. Cafe Javas and the Food Hub, two of the Group’s food companies are also big contributors to the company’s rapid success.