South Sudan's English Daily Newspaper
"We Dare where others fear"

By Simon Deng
Life Industries a local beverage company manufacturing local beer, has called for extensive investment in agriculture to ease local production which depends on imported raw materials from neighboring countries.
Fred Otieno, Marketing Manager for Life Industries has urged the government to provide subsidies to farmers in order to promote huge production of barley which is used to produce beer.
“There are quite a number of challenges that we have been facing. One of them is the supply of other components of the raw materials, we encourage the government to try and promote agriculture, so that people can be able to start even producing barley, which is a component of our beers,” said Otieno during the new year eve celebration at De Down Pub in Juba.
Otieno revealed that the local production of wheat and barley will ease the cost of production, adding that imported raw materials added extra costs including taxes, logistics and transportation.
“If they can promote agriculture by giving farmers subsidies, it would encourage people to start producing wheat and barley, then it would help us a lot, we are importing barley from outside the country, which is very expensive,” he said.
Life industries manufacture South Beer, Desert, South Light, and South Strom, and also Guarana.
However, Otieno noted that at the moment they are mainly focused on promoting South Beer, which is their premier brand in South Sudan.
He disclosed that they have already employed several South Sudanese in their company which is part of their strategy to develop the local economy.
“Our supply chain system is actually a local-based supply chain system. So we distribute our beers to the distributors, who then sell it to the bars, to the retailers, and even to the final consumers who are actually our local South Sudanese,” said Otieno.
He also said that they have launched a 4-month promotion campaign which will see the company giving two vehicles, five motorcycles and 24 mobile phones coupled with so many free beers to entice their customers.
“We have a variety of beers, ranging from the low percentage. We try to cater for everybody’s needs. We are trying to talk to our people, and even the government, to try and help us in resonating with our people, so that we can be able to capture our local market,” said Otieno.
Life Industries which is located in Gumbo suburb, has been in operation since 2021 manufacturing alcoholic beverages from low to 12 percent including South beer which is 4.2 percent alcoholic.