SAB Responds To The Unrest In South Africa

South Africa, It’s time to brew a better future

Beyond the dust and destruction, economic recovery remains the focus at the end of a tricky storm. An appeal to government and all social partners to step up

The South African Breweries (SAB) is saddened by the violent looting and protests that have spread through parts of our country. The violence and destruction of businesses, homes and the loss of lives has created a dark chapter in our nation’s history that we will never forget.

We are strongly appealing to government and all social partners to step up, lead us and help us during these turbulent times. The response to date has been inadequate and as citizens we deserve better.

At SAB, the looting spread through our Pietermaritzburg depot and countless distributors, retailers across the country were left bare in the rampage. This, on top of four total alcohol bans, further threatens the lives and livelihoods of our people and the volatile sustainability of our industry.

SAB is and has been rooted in South Africa for over 126 years, providing employment to 200 000 people, and supporting over one million livelihoods throughout the beer value chain. These are hardworking South Africans who form part of the SAB family. The cumulative impact of destruction filters into thousands of township businesses ranging from liquor stores, taverns, distributors, restaurants, security services, cleaners and logistics companies who have been left utterly devastated be the last week’s unrest. These are the people who we are lending our voices to at this time.

We cannot continue to ignore the fact that South Africa was well on its way to economic recovery. Even though we were struggling with high unemployment – this violence is a further setback to progress. As an organisation we have been bold in playing our part, evidenced by our future investment plans of R2 billion for the 2022 fiscal year. Now, not only does our economy have to recover from the impact of an ongoing global pandemic with a slow vaccination roll-out, we now have the rampant destruction of businesses and infrastructure to contend with.

However, we also believe that every business, community and citizen has a role to play in helping us rebuild and recover. Now is a time to come together. Now is the time for peace. Now is the time for our humanity to endure. We’ve done it before, and we can do it again. We need to rebuild and prove not only to the world, but to ourselves, that we are better than this. We will all be judged by our actions, so let them speak volumes in the weeks, months and years ahead.

SAB is determined to fast track economic recovery through focused empowerment of our value chain and communities.

Please note that SAB is open to doing crew interviews at the depot in KZN should you be interested

Thank you