Business Reporters

THE availability of locally manufactured basic commodities has improved with these now the dominant products on the shelves of leading supermarkets in the country.

According to a price monitoring schedule released by the National Incomes and Pricing Commission, products such as mealie-meal that is being sold in shops such as Spar, OK and TM is now virtually locally manufactured.

This is a different situation from the same time last year where mealie-meal that was available were virtually imports from mainly South Africa.

Apart from mealie-meal there has also been a dramatic increase in the supply of locally manufactured flour, salt, washing soaps, floor polish, cooking oil, candles, soups, tinned foods and petroleum jelly.

According to the NIPC price schedule, there are now nine locally manufactured flour brands, among them Victoria plain flour, Gloria self raising flour and Blue Ribbon self raising amongst others.

The only imported flour brand that is still being sold in the shops surveyed is Snowflakes, which is being imported from South Africa.

National Foods is also leading in salt products while Sunlight, green bar, brown bar, king bar and key blue bar are dominating imported brands such as Elangeni and Brite Lite.

There is, however, still a discrepancy in terms of bathing soap where the locally manufactured soap such as Lifebouy and Geisha are competing with imported brands such as Sona, Lux and Pearl.

This is also the case with sanitary pads where shops are stocking predominately-imported brands such as Always, Nina and Stayfree while locally the only brand available is Farai.

Imported margarine brands such as Romi, Stock and Flora are also dominating the market ahead of local brands such as Buttercup and Harvest.

There is also no change in terms of the supply of toothpaste in the country with available stock being entirely imported.

The agriculture sector seems to be on a rebound since local products like vegetables, eggs, milk, tea leaves and meat are now dominate in the surveyed shops with the imported products being mixed chicken portion.

The increase in the supply of local products on the shelves comes of the back of an improvement in the production levels within the manufacturing sector.

By October last year capacity utilisation in the manufacturing sector was between 30 percent and 50 percent and in some few cases it was above 50 percent.

This was an improvement from about 10 percent in 2008.

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