• Innscor delivered strong broad-based volume growth with standout performances in Bakery (+28%), Colcom protein (+29%), Snacks (+60%), Pasta (+41%), and Fertiliser (+64%), driven by capacity expansions and firm consumer demand
• Statutory Instrument 87 of 2025 is creating significant inflationary pressures and pricing uncertainty on maize and soya,  critical raw materials  
• The group continues aggressive capacity investment (new bakery line, Colcom expansions, Tanganda tea stake) while navigating drought effects, Foot and Mouth Disease, and global commodity volatility

Harare- Innscor Africa Limited has reported encouraging volume momentum across its core manufacturing operations for the nine months to 31 March 2026, with standout performances from its bakery, protein, snacks, pasta, and fertiliser divisions.

However,  the trading update published on behalf of the board, contains a disclosure that cuts directly against the broadly positive operating narrative, Statutory Instrument 87 of 2025, a grain and oilseed policy intervention that the group describes as creating inflationary pressures and pricing uncertainty across maize and soya-based products, remains unresolved and is actively complicating operations in exactly the segments that form the backbone of Innscor's manufacturing model.

Statutory Instrument 87 of 2025, formally the Agricultural Marketing Authority (Grain, Oilseed and Products) (Amendment) Regulations No 2, was gazetted on 5 September 2025 with the stated objective of promoting local grain and oilseed production by encouraging increased local sourcing by processors. The policy intent is legitimate and consistent with broader government priorities around agricultural self-sufficiency and import substitution.

The implementation, however, has produced outcomes that diverge from the stated intent. Innscor describes conflicting pronouncements and interpretations that have created inflationary pressures and pricing uncertainty for maize and soya-based products. These are not peripheral inputs. Maize and soya are the primary raw materials for National Foods, Colcom, Irvine's, and the Stockfeed divisions, which together represent a substantial portion of the group's manufacturing output and consumer reach.

The Maize division at National Foods recorded a 56% contraction in volumes against the comparative nine-month period, which the group attributed primarily to drought-induced market dynamics from the previous season's El Niño conditions. But the SI 87 environment, which has pushed local maize procurement costs above import parity in some interpretations, is an additional cost pressure operating simultaneously with the supply constraint.

The interaction between drought-reduced local supply and a regulatory framework that mandates or encourages local sourcing at a moment of local scarcity is precisely the kind of policy-market mismatch that creates the inflationary pressure the group is describing.

The Stockfeed division at National Foods closed 10% behind the comparative period, with the group noting that demand remained firm across poultry and beef categories but that the prior period's elevated ruminant stockfeed volumes reflected drought-driven dynamics that have now normalised. The SI 87 uncertainty around soya-based inputs added a forward-looking cost risk to a division already navigating normalisation dynamics.

The group remains hopeful that the SI will be clarified to ensure a practical outcome that results in the elimination of the current inflationary pressures while achieving the objective of promoting local agricultural production. That formulation, hopeful and outcome-oriented, is the language of a company that has been engaging constructively with authorities but has not yet received the regulatory certainty it needs to plan with confidence into the final quarter and the next financial year.

Against the SI 87 backdrop, the Bakery division's 28% increase in loaf volumes  is the clearest evidence in this trading update of what committed capital investment delivers in practice. The volume growth was underpinned by the commissioning of a new, fully automated production line at the Harare facility in May 2025, whose uptake the group describes as excellent, with the investment delivering notable improvements in product quality, consistency, and operational efficiency.

The group is now commissioning a sixth bakery line at the Harare site, described as a state-of-the-art production line on schedule for commissioning before the end of the current financial year. This is capacity investment being added into a market where the existing fifth line has already demonstrated strong demand absorption.

The bakery division's volume trajectory, 28% growth over nine months with additional capacity coming online, positions it as one of the most operationally compelling stories in the Innscor portfolio.

The flour division at National Foods, which supplies the bulk bakers category that feeds Innscor's own bakeries as well as the broader market, delivered solid volume growth of 15% over the comparative period, with demand remaining firm across both bulk and prepack categories. The vertical integration between flour milling and bakery operations is producing the cost and supply chain efficiencies that justify the investment architecture.

Meanwhile, the Colcom division, comprising Triple C Pigs and Colcom Foods, delivered a 29% increase in aggregate volumes over the nine-month period. This is the protein segment's most significant result and deserves detailed attention because it reflects not just volume recovery but structural expansion.

The fresh pork category recorded a 35% uplift relative to the comparative period. Polony volumes increased 48%, while the Colcom Pie category grew 38%.

These are not marginal improvements across a stable business, they are the outputs of deliberate capacity investment at Triple C Pigs, which commissioned a new production unit in July 2025 and, during the recently ended third quarter, commissioned a new sow breeder unit.

The sow breeder unit is the upstream investment that determines future weekly pig supply to Colcom Foods. Its commissioning in Q3 2026 means that the volume growth being reported now will be sustained and augmented in coming periods as the breeding cycle translates into increased finished pig supply.

The group notes that further expansion at Triple C piggery operations is under investigation to cater for the continued volume increase expected ahead. The investment programme to upgrade the Colcom Foods processing plant has commenced and is expected to progress over the next four years on a rolling basis to avoid production disruption. The four-year upgrade timeline signals that management views the current volume trajectory as durable rather than cyclical, and is investing accordingly.

Irvine's delivered day-old-chick volumes 17% ahead of the comparative period and frozen poultry volumes 16% ahead. AMP recorded overall protein volumes 14% ahead, with the chicken category up 16% and beef up 14% across both processed and fresh categories.

The beef category continues to contend with Foot and Mouth Disease, which the group identifies as a significant ongoing challenge for the sector, constraining what would otherwise be an even stronger performance in a category where consumer demand remains firm.

Two of the most striking volume numbers in the trading update were in categories that have historically been growth segments but are now delivering at a scale that suggests structural rather than cyclical demand expansion.

The Snacks division closed 60% ahead of the comparative nine-month period under the Zapnax and King Kurl brands. The Pasta division delivered 41% volume growth under the Primo and Better Buy brands. The Biscuits division recorded significant volume growth with the Gloria Munchies offering described as maintaining extremely firm consumer demand, with the Harare-based biscuit plant now operating near capacity and expansion options under assessment.

These categories share a common characteristic: they are accessible, affordable, impulse-driven consumer products that expand their addressable market as household incomes improve and as distribution reach extends into lower-income and rural consumer segments. The group has invested in manufacturing capacity for each of these categories in recent periods, and the volume trajectory in all three suggests those investments are meeting genuine consumer demand rather than simply adding capacity ahead of growth.

The near-capacity utilisation of the biscuit plant within a relatively short period of its commissioning is the most concrete signal that the consumer appetite for affordable premium snacking is deeper than initial volume projections anticipated. The group's assessment of options to expand production capacity and product offering into adjacent biscuit categories reflects a management team responding to demand signals rather than supply-side opportunity.

Nutrimaster's 64% increase in fertiliser volumes over the nine-month period is one of the most remarkable divisional performances in this trading update, and it is analytically significant because it reflects Innscor's positioning across the entire agricultural value chain rather than just at the consumer end.

The volume growth was underpinned by strong demand during the summer row-cropping and tobacco planting seasons. Zimbabwe's tobacco sector delivered a record marketing season in terms of both volume and export values, as noted in Delta Corporation's financial results for the same period.

The fertiliser demand that supports that record tobacco output flows through Nutrimaster. The group notes encouraging prospects ahead of the imminent winter wheat planting season, suggesting the fertiliser division's strong volume performance is expected to continue into the next quarter.

The broader agricultural inputs portfolio, including seed, agrochemicals, and granulation services, delivered solid volume growth during the period. Nutrimaster is increasingly a diversified agricultural inputs business rather than a single-commodity fertiliser distributor, which reduces its exposure to commodity-specific demand cycles and positions it to capture a larger share of the farmer's total input spend.

The Tanganda acquisition and what comes next

The trading update confirms that the group, through Rutanhi Beverages Limited, underwrote a US$8 million rights offer by Tanganda Tea Company Limited and now holds approximately 29% of Tanganda's ordinary shares. The Tanganda business is being onboarded into Innscor's operating and financial systems and processes, with its results to be included within the group's financial results with effect from 1 April 2026.

Tanganda is Zimbabwe's dominant tea producer and one of the country's most recognisable consumer brands. Its inclusion in Innscor's beverage holding portfolio from the fourth quarter of the 2026 financial year and the full 2027 financial year adds a category with distinct margin characteristics and consumer positioning to a beverages portfolio that includes Probottlers' Bally House cordials and Fizzi carbonated soft drinks.

The timing of the acquisition, coinciding with a period when Probottlers is navigating a complex trading environment with CSD volumes 13% behind the comparative period and ongoing dialogue with authorities about policy support for local beverage manufacturers, suggests the group is diversifying its beverage portfolio into categories, tea and premium beverages, that are less exposed to the sugar surtax dynamics and import substitution pressures that are constraining the carbonated soft drinks segment.

The group identified global geopolitical developments, particularly the conflict in the Middle East, as introducing a high degree of uncertainty into international commodity markets, contributing to acute volatility in input costs including fuel, raw materials, and freight. This is a cross-divisional risk that affects Natpak most directly, given its polymer and crude oil-linked input cost exposure, but flows through to every division that sources internationally priced raw materials or pays freight costs on imported inputs.

The final quarter of the F2026 financial year, covering April to June 2026, will be shaped by the resolution or continuation of three variables: the SI 87 clarification that the group is awaiting, the Middle East-driven input cost volatility that management is actively managing, and the commissioning of the sixth Harare bakery line that will add further production capacity ahead of the new financial year.

The volume momentum across the group's core categories is genuine and broad-based. The policy and geopolitical environment in which that momentum is being generated is the risk that the trading update, read carefully, communicates with equal clarity. Innscor is growing despite the headwinds. The question for the full year result is by how much those headwinds constrained what the underlying business was capable of delivering.

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