Operations

Colcom Foods operations are headquartered in Harare at 1/3 Coventry Road. These include an abattoir, deboning facility, well-equipped processing factory for some 160 lines of fresh and processed products, the automated Colcom pie bakery, and infrastructure required to supply refrigeration to chillers and freezers, steam, compressed air, electrical power, `and purified water. To ensure the highest standards are maintained Colcom Foods has over the past few years invested significantly in upgrading and refurbishing its factory equipment, refrigeration, and related facilities.

The Colcom Shop and Express Shop are also located at this site, handling direct wholesale services to the public. Colcom Foods also directly manages sales through a depot in Mutare and three smaller retail outlets in Mbare, Norton and Ruwa. All Colcom products are distributed from the factory, mainly utilising Colcom’s own distribution fleet and a distributor based in Bulawayo who has facilities there and in Masvingo, Gweru and Victoria Falls.

The initiation of Triple C Pigs in Norton in 1988 was a major move forward and investment in line with international trends at the time, when Colcom vertically integrated its operations in a large world-class pig production unit. The first of its kind in Zimbabwe, Triple C Pigs started as a joint venture with CC Sales but became wholly owned by Colcom in 2004.

Triple C Pigs has subsequently increased its production with pig units across its five sites.  As of August 2023, it has 4 650 sows, producing 2 550 pigs per week.  Counting sows, boars, and offspring at different stages of growth there are some 62 000 pigs at Triple C Pigs’ facilities.

The pigs supplied to Colcom by Triple C Pigs have achieved notable results in quality, output, and feed conversion.  Among the many keys to this is using top quality imported Topigs Norsvin genetics in the breeding herds and artificial insemination facility, stringent health and hygiene procedures incorporating biosecurity to maintain Specific Pathogen Free (SPF) status, specialised nutrition and sophisticated management systems backed by computerised technology.

Triple C Pigs has its own on-site Mill and Mix facility producing 3 400 metric tonnes of stockfeed per month with potential to double that on the second shift. To remain abreast with developments in the industry, constant contact is maintained with international developments in pig production. In this regard, Triple C Pigs is fundamental to Colcom Foods’ wide range of renowned fresh and processed pork products.

Factory refurbishment in 2023 focused on increasing factory output. In line with this, Colcom invested in a range of modern machinery to improve factory efficiency. This included a new clipper for our polonies, a new tumbler for the bacon curing cellar and a new brine injector for the curing cellar. We have also invested in secondary packaging (boxing) equipment on our ever-busy pie line machine in the factory which is now giving us more accuracy and improves in line efficiency to yield costs and labour saving. All these investments will result in growth capacity and provide better quality products and packaging for the end customer.

At Triple C Pigs, the business has invested in a new, modernized feed mill. The mill was operational in June 2023 with the capacity to produce all Triple C’s current feed requirements and those for the foreseeable future.