Many goods, especially beverages like beer, cider, and soft drinks, are imported or made using imported ingredients. Botswana imported about P8.1 billion worth of goods in May 2025, with food and drinks making up a big part.
Food and Beverages Import Bill
According to Statistics Botswana:
- Out of that, food and beverages cost P1.2 billion.
- The second most imported group was beverages, spirits, and vinegar.
- The top imported item in this group was beer from malt, making up 35.6%.
- This was followed by other drinks like cider, mead, sake, and mixes of alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, which made up14.7%.
In 2024, Kgalagadi Breweries Limited (KBL) experienced a rise in expenses. Imara Capital found that the higher cost base was mostly due to its continued reliance on imported goods to meet local demand.
“A focus on localizing production and reducing import dependency should help defend and potentially enhance operating margins,”
analysts at Imara Securities said in June.
As an example, Imara observed that Coca Cola Beverages Botswana (CCBB) saw a turnaround in 2024, driven by increased local production capacity, which reduced dependency on imports, thereby improving cost efficiency.
Producing goods locally is becoming more important. Because of changes in how Botswana’s currency (the pula) exchanges for other countries’ money, it now takes more pulas to buy things from outside. This makes imports more expensive. When that happens, shops like Sefalana and Choppies often raise their prices to cover these extra costs. They have already said some of their shelf items are affected.
Read how this affects their costs: Retail Stocks and the Inflation Divide and How They Survive the Price Increases
- In 2024, Coca-Cola Beverages Botswana (CCBB) net revenue increased by 12%
CCBB had a 32% increase in profit after tax, mainly due to an increase in net sales revenue as driven by increased volumes.
- Kgalagadi Breweries Limited (KBL) net revenue increased by 14%.
KBL achieved a 9% increase in comparison to the prior year, mainly driven by price, volume as well and product mix.
For the full year 2024, Sechaba recorded a 12% increase in profit after tax, reaching P272 million, up from P243 million in the previous year, largely attributed to the strong performance of associate companies.
For investors, there is something to watch in the second half of the year: Will higher import costs affect the profits the company makes? If so, it could also affect what shareholders earn from their investments. Investors will be watching the impact of costs on price variation and on volumes.
Imara Capital said in June that Sechaba is the most efficient business on the exchange. In the past year, the group also gave shareholders a bonus dividend.
