Delta Corporation’s sorghum beer business posted its highest volumes since 1998 in the year to March 2026, part of a broader run that pushed the Zimbabwean beverage group’s annual revenue past US$1 billion for the first time. Sorghum beer volume rose 19 percent to 4.62 million hectolitres, overtaking a benchmark set during a liquidity boom fuelled by war veterans’ compensation payouts.
Group revenue climbed 35 percent to just over US$1 billion, with profit before tax up 56 percent to US$210 million. Chief executive Matlhogonolo Valela told analysts in Harare the sorghum result had long been treated internally as unbeatable. “This year, we have beaten that number that we have always said is not quite possible to achieve,” he said, citing improved rural liquidity from tobacco sales and mining activity.
The volumes matter beyond Zimbabwe. Chibuku, the brand behind most of that growth, is one of several industrialised names for the same fermented sorghum and maize tradition found across the continent, alongside umqombothi in South Africa and pito in West Africa. Delta has consolidated ownership of the brand market by market in Zambia and South Africa, betting that a long-life variant with a shelf life of 21 days or more can travel further than the traditional four to six day product.
That bet has not always held. Malawi’s Chibuku licensee reported a 50 percent sales drop after longer-life Zambian stock was smuggled across the border, undercutting local production on price, according to the company’s Gloria Zimba. It is a reminder that shelf life cuts both ways commercially once a product crosses borders informally.
Delta is not the only bottler expanding in the market. Varun Beverages Zimbabwe has separately committed US$650 million to local energy, agriculture and manufacturing projects, a scale of investment that signals how competitive Zimbabwe’s beverage sector has become for both domestic brewers and PepsiCo’s regional franchisee.
Delta is now directing capital toward capacity rather than volume risk. The group has earmarked more than US$120 million for malting and brewing expansion in the 2027 financial year, nearly triple the prior year’s spend, with management flagging that ancillary malting capacity, not demand, is now the binding constraint on how much further the sorghum business can grow.
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