Tanzania billionaire ready to compete with Cocacola and Pepsi

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania

Tanzanian businessman and East Africa’s only known dollar billionaire Mohammed Dewji has said he is now ready to compete with some of the world’s biggest brands such as Unilever, Proctor & Gamble, Pepsi and Coca Cola.

Speaking in an interview with CNN’s Connecting Africa, Dewji said his most selling product Mo Extra, a carbonated soft drink, sold over a billion bottles in 2022 and he is ready to take on the leading soft drinks giants.

"I am setting up factories everywhere where Pepsi and Coca Cola are, and I am hoping that the 1 billion bottles can reach 3 to 4 billion bottles in the next 24 to 36 months,” said Mr Dewji.

With a growing catalogue of products from fertilisers to Mo Assurance, Mo Dewji, as he is fondly known in Tanzania, is setting up factories in Uganda, Rwanda, Mozambique and Zambia.

Dewji, who is considered one of the world’s largest sisal producers, said Africans now have disposable income to afford the types of products his businesses produce.

"All that I manufacture from the soaps, edible oils to soft drinks are things that are needed on a daily basis and that is why I am placed to compete with global brands such as Proctor & Gamble and Unilever.  In the colas, I am positioned to compete with giants such as Pepsi and Coca Cola.

"You are talking of an economy of about $70 billion dollars, now when you are talking of revenue of about $2.5 billion then you cannot be in one business and that is why I am in over 150 different product lines,” he added.