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Welcome
to AFRICABIZ, 
Welcome
to AFRICABIZ HTML Email edition. Previous issue available at this
link.
Dear faithful reader,
In last
month delivery of AFRICABIZ
ONLINE MONTHLY ISSUE we started a series on cereals and introduced Sorghum, a
"Life Saver" according to a Chinese saying.
In this
issue, we continue the series with a small scale pilot plant to producing sorghum
beer to catch on a ready market available in most sub-Saharan African countries.
As we said "Any African country which is serious about boosting up
its economy, should consider diversification into the sorghum development".
Sorghum will participate for a substantial share to the growth of the
economy as industrial transformations resulting from sorghum are endless. For
instance the development of breweries to producing sorghum beer - based on technology
here briefly exposed -
will help boost up the cultivation of corn and sorghum and therefore provide
additional national market outlets for those two cereals.
"CONTRIBUTOR'S
GUIDELINES" are
available here. You are invited
to contribute to AFRICABIZ ONLINE MONTHLY ISSUE - in accordance to specifics
outlined in the Contributor's Guidelines.
Many
thanks for subscribing to Africabiz. See you here next month on December 15.
Dr. B.M. Quenum
Click here to get email address
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Business
Opportunities
READY MARKET FOR SORGHUM BEER IN ANY SUB-SAHARAN AFRICAN COUNTRY
Last month, in AFRICABIZ Online Monthly Issue N°
30 an introduction was made to another economic
catalyst capable of acting as Income Building Power For An African Community
: Sorghum.
In this issue of AFRICABIZ we consider a business
opportunity based on the production of an African beverage / sorghum beer; on
a small scale / pilot plant basis.
Sorghum beer is a popular traditional
beverage in many sub-Saharan African countries. It is home made in country sides
and consumed by rural and cities dwellers alike. However, since quite 40 years
it had been more or less outclassed - in cities - by imported or locally made
European barley / lager beer.
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Therefore a good industrially made sorghum beer, tasty as home made one, has a
ready market in most sub-Saharan African countries; as a highly competitive product
against European lager beer.
The technology to producing sorghum
beer on industrial basis exists. The only problem for an entrepreneur interested
to enter the brewing business of sorghum beer is the size of the potential market
in his country.
To size up the market, in any African country, where
the production of industrially manufactured sorghum beer does not exist yet (only
Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa are current producers) an interested
entrepreneur should start with a small scale / pilot plant.
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SMALL SCALE / PILOT PLANT CAPACITY
A
pilot / small scale plant could be established with an output (at full capacity)
of 2,400 liters of sorghum beer per day (3,200 bottles of 750 ml) capable of
generating substantial revenues and profits - compared to the average production
level achieved by most European lager beer plants operating throughout the continent:
40, 000 to 2,500,000 liters per day.
For 300 days per year / one shift,
the pilot plant at full capacity will produce 720,000 liters per year of
sorghum beer or 960,000 bottles of 750 ml. In case the market reacts positively,
the establishment of a second shift of workers will help doubling the output.
Workforce - management included - is estimated at 15 people. The selling
price - off plant / to distributors - of a bottle of 750 ml will be something
in the range of 20 cents; and final selling price to consumer 26 cents (compared
to other soft drinks and European beer pricing ranging from 32 to 56 cents for
bottles of 50 ml); and the selling price of the wastes (suitable for animal feed)
US $ 66 per metric tons.
Based on all indications above outlined we
have the following Gross Profit table:
| Items
| Amount
(US$) | |
INVESTMENT
| |
Main
equipment; storage tank; packaging, vehicle etc. |
120,000
| | Preliminary
expenses (technical assistance to set up the pilot plant; business plan; etc.)
| 75,000
| | Operational
funds (3 months) |
13,749 |
| Total
investment |
208,749 |
| TURNOVER
| |
960,000 (bottles) x .20 US $ |
192,000 |
| 65
(metric tons of wastes) x 66 US $ |
4,290 |
| Total
Turnover | 196,290 |
| OPERATING
COSTS | |
Total
Salaries |
8,500
| | Other
Operating Costs |
140,850 |
| Total
Operating Costs |
149,350 |
| GROSS
PROFIT | |
Total
Gross Profit |
46,940
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Control Your Desktop
HAVING
TROUBLES TO CLOSE DOWN YOUR SYSTEM?
From time to time it may happen that Windows does not comply to the normal process
of START / Shut Down. Sometimes the process does not go to the final stage
and stops to the Windows "flag" screen. And when that happens there
is no other way than restarting Windows through Ctrl + Alt / Delete.
Windows then starts the "lengthy" disk scanning process and loads
the operating system again when the scanning is terminated. Afterwards Start /
Shut down effectively closes down Windows. This occurs more than often with
Windows 98.
In search for a way to bypassing the annoying scanning
period, I found out that instead of going through the classic START / Shut
Down it is better to perform:
1 - Ctrl + Alt / Delete
2 - Choose / highlight Explorer
in the Close Program panel
3 - And choose "End
Task" and not "Shut down"
4 - The
normal Shut Down Windows panel appears.
5 - Make sure that Shut down
is selected and click OK. |
That way of shutting down Windows 9x works better if you close down ("End
Task") some of the programs listed in the Close Program panel (which appears
with Ctrl + Alt / Delete) before hitting Shut Down.
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