After years of administrative delays, PepsiCo, the world’s second-largest food and beverage company by revenue, is finally building a US$30m bottling plant in Harare, Zimbabwe.India’s Varun Beverages, a division of RJ Corp, headed by founder Ravi Jaipuria, runs more than 20 bottling plants for PepsiCo in Asia and Africa — including operations in Mozambique, Zambia and Morocco. The company will build the Zimbabwean plant with local partner Glaciem and Adam Molai, a businessman with interests in fuel logistics, lubricants and cigarettes, who is married to President Robert Mugabe’s niece, Sandra Mugabe.Zimbabwean media said the president had “saved” the deal during the India-Africa summit on the subcontinent last year, and that Jaipuria had requested a meeting with him to complain about excessive red tape as well as the requests for documentation from multiple government departments that were frustrating the deal.Local media also reported that Jaipuria had a further $250m lined up to i...
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