Botswana: Botswana Investment and Trade Center CEO, Keletsositse Olebile, visited the Okavango Craft Brewery to gain an understanding of the challenges impeding the business and its positive achievements since its establishment.
The Okavango Craft Brewery is one of the companies receiving assistance from BITC and is based in Maun. BITC has provided important aftercare services to ensure the smooth running of the brewery and its expansion.
The company produces millet malt and brews a variety of uniquely blended adjunct beers namely: Delta Lager’ Bohemian style larger, Kingfisher session IPA, Panhandle’ English style bitter Pale Ale and Old Bull’ Irish style Stout.
The brewery is unique in that it is the first craft brewery in northern Botswana and has incorporated conservation practices by collaborating with the local NGO Ecoexist. Ecoexist supports communities living on the edges of wildlife areas, who often share space and resources with crop-raiding elephants.
Ecoexist has been championing “elephant-aware farming” for over 9 years, which involves using preventative methods such as chili pepper smoke and solar-powered electric fences to protect property and crops, implementing conservation agriculture to improve yields, and learning how to farm away from the key, regularly trodden elephant corridors. As a result of agricultural success, there is now a surplus of crops in the millet fields.
Millet is a climate-smart crop that requires less rainfall and is bought at a premium price by the brewery to reward farmers for their efforts to coexist with elephants. The millet is then carefully malted and used in every recipe, from IPAs to Lagers, Stouts, and even non-alcoholic beer.
The Okavango Craft Brewery’s mission is to put conservation at the heart of its business, and its long-term vision is to continue to grow its ‘elephant-aware beer’ while also working with other breweries to incorporate sustainable malted millet into its recipes.
The company currently supplies Liqourama and Tops outlets.