With the super high prices of industrial processed cooking oil on the market, smaller and medium size cooking oil manufacturing plants are now in business with their retail prices saving consumers about 30 to 50%.
And one of the leading suppliers of small and medium size cooking oil crushing and processing plants Saro Agro has revealed that the demand for the cooking oil crushing plants has continued to increase.
Saro Agro Industrial Limited says the demand for oil mill machinery has continued to grow and has outweighed the supply. This follows the escalating cooking oil prices from large scale processors as well as in chain stores.
Cacius Nchimunya, a Sales and Service Engineer at Saro Agro said the market for the machines is overwhelming and has led to supply being lower than the demand now, with most of its customers being farmers who buy more quantities, government ministries and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs).
Speaking in an exclusive interview with the Zambian Business Times-ZBT, Nchimunya said the company is working on increasing supply but the challenge is that due to COVID-19, suppliers are limiting the quantity that a company can get at a particular time which has made it difficult to increase supply.
He said the company has in stock one model of oil mill machines but in three sizes, which are 6YL-68 the smallest size, 6YL-80 and 6YL-100, the biggest size. He further said the oil mills can be either electric or diesel, with prices for the electric machines ranging from about K38,000 for the 6YL-68, K67,000 for the 6YL-80 and K81,000 for the 6YL-100.
He added that prices for the machines that use diesel range from about K48,000 for the 6YL-68, K69,000 for the 6YL-80 and K80,000 for the 6YL-100 noting that diesel machines are more expensive because diesel engines are more expensive than an electric motor.
He noted that both the electrical and diesel machines have a crushing capacity of atleast 85kg of feed per hour for the 6YL-68, atleast 150kg of feed per hour for the 6YL-80 and atleast 200kg of feed per hour for the 6YL-100.
He said capacity is not measured by the amount of oil produced due to different qualities of seed as different types of seed produce different quantities of oil as per 50kgs adding that a 50kg bag of seed with good quality can produce 20 litres of cooking oil.
Nchimunya mentioned that the company has a three months installment payment plan that allows customers to pay for the machines within three months and are only allowed to get the machines after the last installment payment.
“For three months, the price doesn’t change for a customer who is committed but when a customer goes beyond three months, by our standards when a customer exceeds three months, we have to consider him/her with a new price, of course at times due to customer service you may be considerate”, he said.
