Invegrow invests K11bn in industrial hemp production

Invegrow Limited, a company behind industrial hemp research and production, says it plans to invest $15 million (about K11 billion) in the first three years of its commercial production of industrial hemp-related products.

This comes against the backdrop of the company investing $1 million (K738 million) to establish a factory to be commissioned in June this year.

The factory is located at Kasiya in Lilongwe, which is 20 kilometres from the city of Lilongwe and it is expected to be producing on pilot phase hemp oil for human consumption and industrial use.

Invegrow Limited director Nebert Nyirenda said in an interview that factory equipment was already imported and installation plans are advancing well.

He said the major bottleneck is the pending power connectivity by Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) which may delay installation of the factory machines, adding that all other activities are on course.

Said Nyirenda: “Commencement of the production is much dependent on how Escom will quickly connect us to the power grid. Our plan is that we should commission the factory atest by June this year.

“Even if the licensing for production of products may delay; we can go ahead to commission the factory because it is a generic equipment that can be used to process any type of vegetable oil.”

He said industrial oil is used as an ingredient into other industrial products.

In terms of investment, Nyirenda said after investing $1 million (about K738 million) in the first phase of production and the market responds well, they will go full commercial and embark on phase two with a total investment between $10 to $15 million.

He said apart from the local market, the company is also targeting the export markets.

“We know that hemp value chain is worth about $9 billion dollars world over so that is the basis of our markets. The markets are there, the $9 billion dollar is there as a full cake and we want to eat part of that cake of the $9 billion dollar industry.

“We have markets in Europe, we have markets in southern Africa, we have markets in European Union, we have markets in America and in China so the market is big just as good as tobacco that is where we want to take a bit of our businesses pie,” said Nyirenda.