Keroche Breweries is keen to have its protracted bottle dispute with EABL resolved by the Competitions Authority in Kenya (CAK).
This comes barely a week after High Court Judge Alfred Mabeya directed the authority to determine the use of the euro bottles within 120 days.
Keroche and six beer distributors have accused EABL of embossing the universal bottles with their logos thus limiting their market access and production.
They noted that the move was meant to lock out the investor and other breweries that use the 500ml brown euro bottle from the liquor business.
Speaking in Naivasha, Keroche Breweries CEO Tabitha Karanja said that they would abide by the High Court decision to have the case resolved by CAK.
She insisted that the bottle was a universal packaging material that had been used by other brewers in the country and neighboring countries.
“We welcome the decision by the High Court to have our case resolved by the Competitions Authority in Kenya within four months,” she said.
Karanja at the same time noted despite unfair competition grounds, they were keen to capture ten percent of the market share.
She added that they were headed to achieving this but the Covid-19 pandemic adversely affected the sector leading to a drop in production and sale of beer.
“For years we have worked under unfair grounds but we thank Kenyans for believing in our products and promoting local investments,” she said.
She added that the company was keen to introduce another strong beer in the market to bridge the current gap among consumers.
Last week, the company launched Vienna Ice Strong Lager which has an alcohol content of 10 percent.
“The new product Vienna Ice Strong Lager will generate over Sh1 billion to KRA every year and this will rise with time as per our market projections,” she said.
The company operations manager Nicholas Kipchirchir said that the new product was launched after the successful acceptance of KB lager last year.
Kipchirchir added that the company had the capacity of producing over 40,00 bottles per hour adding that they would meet the demand for the newly launched strong beer.
“We have done extensive market research and we are sure that this product will be accepted in the market by our consumers,” he said.
