Vitis Industries investing in agriculture, tourism

A local liquor company has started investing in agriculture and tourism as a way to generate domestic economic activity outside its core business.
Vitis Industries Limited managing director Sergey Mosin said the company would focus on downstream processing of raw materials such as coffee and vanilla.
“Vitis Industries has a 1200ha estate at Wau (Morobe), a 700ha coffee plantation and two coffee factories producing parchment coffee and green coffee beans,” Mosin said
“We are building an instant-coffee factory to process coffee and cocoa.
“This factory will produce 100kg of instant powder per hour.
“This instant coffee and cocoa powder will be used to produce dry and liquid coffee and chocolate drinks. We will buy large volume of coffee from coffee farmers at Bulolo and Wau area.”
The company will also produce vanilla extract, which can be used in food products such as biscuits, ice cream and beverages.
Mosin said this yesterday in Port Moresby during the announcement of the company’s international award for Best Brewery of The Year from the annual Berlin International Beer Competition in Germany.
The company’s Mosin beer products also won gold, silver and four bronze medals at the competition.
“This is an unexpected and remarkable achievement for a developing country like PNG to produce world-class products,” Mosin said.
Mosin said this international recognition was a milestone for the company and proof that PNG has the potential to make local products that can be competitive in international markets.
He said the company opened its first supermarket in Wau last week and will soon open three more in Port Moresby and one in Lae.
Mosin said plans were underway to build a 20-room hotel in Kavieng, New Ireland. “We bought a small eight-room lodge at Kavieng and we are re-building and extending it to 20 rooms. It should be finished in seven months,” he said.