81 winners rewarded with fabulous prizes as ‘Iponyereninso Kwakuya ndi Illovo’ gathers momentum

Illovo Sugar’s Musyani-Chipeta (left) and her colleagues sort out the entries

* 6 lucky winners to each go away with a Nissan NP200 vehicle in grand prize

* Second level competitors winning motorbikes, bicycles and bags of fertilizer

* Retail consumers winning cookers, fridges and shopping vouchers

* Monthly Instore activations instant prizes include buckets, zitenje, T-shirts and Illovo sugar packets

By Duncan Mlanjira

The first bi-weekly draw of the Illovo Sugar Malawi Plc festive season promotion ‘Iponyereninso Kwakuya ndi Illovo’ rewarded faithful 81 lucky customers who went away with various prizes.

The promotion, which was also carried out last year under the name ‘Iponyereni Kwakuya ndi Illovo’ is worth a combined K140 million that include 6 Nissan NP200 vehicles as the grand prizes.

The first 81 winners went away with prizes that included bicycles; bags of fertilizers; cookers; fridges and shopping vouchers — worth a combined K100 million.

Illovo Sugar’s Trade Marketing Manager, Nita Musyani-Chipeta said the promotion is gathering momentum as participation this year has started strong.

“After seeing other customers win excellent prizes, their confidence levels are up and participation rates are good as seen in the Number of entries,” she said during the bi-weekly draw at Head Office in Limbe.

There were 12 customers that each won a bag of fertilizers and a bicycle and one fridge and cooker each for lucky winners

in each of the three regions of the country.

The promo was relaunched on November 26 and has three levels of entry in which the 6 Nissan NP200 vehicles are for Illovo Sugar’s stockiest — those who buy and sell sugar in bulk — who will be required to buy 2 tons or more to stand a chance of winning.

For grocers and table tops — or those who sell packets of sugar to consumers in groceries or local traders in the markets — they are encouraged to buy 2 bales or more of Illovo sugar to stand a chance of winning motorbikes, bicycles and bags of fertilizer.

The retail customer also has something sweet for them as all they need is to buy 3 kgs or more of any Illovo sugar to stand a chance of winning cookers, fridges and shopping vouchers.

Once they make their purchase in all three levels, the customers are simply writing their names and contact numbers at the back of their Malawi Revenue Authority’s value added tax (MRA/VAT) receipt and deposit it in entry box at the reseller shops and participating supermarkets where they made the purchase.

Illovo will also running Monthly Instore activations where other prizes will be won instantly including buckets, zitenje, T-shirts and Illovo sugar packets.

At the launch held at Sunbird Mount Soche Hotel, Illovo Sugar Managing Director Lekani Katandula, said they were impressed with positive and overwhelming response from their customers and shoppers in last year’s competition and thus decided to bring it back as another festive season celebration.

“I would say last year tinayiponyera kwakuya nde pano tayitenga pamene tinayisiya chaka chatha ndiku yiponyeranso kwakuya — kapena tinene kuti tayivunga?”

“I say that lightly but we do believe in continuous improvement in everything we do therefore this is reflected here as well.”

The promo follows another that the company carried out — a first of its kind ‘Every Day Chef’ cooking competition where 3 lucky finalists went home with a total of K8 million.

In response to the CoVID-19 pandemic, Illovo Sugar Malawi contributed resources towards the the fight since its outset last year, donating medical equipment and supplies worth K100 million at the beginning of this year for Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre, Kasinthula in Chimwala and Nkhotakota.

At the outset of the pandemic last year, it donated K10 million Kameza isolation center in form of hospital beds and monitors and a further K60 million support for Blantyre City Council, Chikwawa and Nkhotakota.

Internally, the company initiated a campaign tagged ‘CoVID-19: It’s In Our Hands’ which it launched in April 2020 aimed at encouraging all employees to commit to behaving in a manner that will help stop the spread of the pandemic at work, in their homes and in their communities.

Illovo Sugar always supports other emergencies that affect the communities in its estate district and recently launched a K75 million-worth community intervention project to help with the fight against the spread of CoVID-19 in Dwangwa and Nchalo aimed at engaging with the communitites to highlight underlying behaviours that have createdresistance to adherence to preventive measures as well as vaccine uptake.

The company is listed on the Malawi Stock Exchange with 76% of the issued share capital held by the Illovo Group while the balance is held by public and other institutional investors.

The corporate office is based at Limbe with two operations at Nchalo in the South Region and Dwangwa in the Central, producing sugar cane and raw and refined sugar, together with specialty sugars at Nchalo.

Illovo Malawi is the country’s sole sugar producer with more than 60% of total sugar sales sold to domestic consumer and industrial markets, and the balance exported to preferential markets in the EU and the USA, and the surrounding region.

In Malawi, as in Illovo’s other countries of operation except for South Africa, the agricultural operations are significantly enhanced by several factors, including access to secure water sources for irrigation, excellent soils, and ideal climatic conditions to promote optimum cane growth.

Combined, these attributes result in high yielding sugar cane crops which are harvested annually.