Major Chem Survives Phikwe Meltdown
Koketso Kgoboge | Monday June 5, 2017 16:45
Major Chem deals with manufacturing of cleaning detergents. The Phikwe based company started their operations last year after being funded by the Ministry of Youth, Sport and Culture Development two years ago.
Major Chem was crowned the best in the manufacturing sector at the northern trade fair and scooped a business Botswana award. The 27 years old director Benjamin was elated with the feat.
“This is a huge achievement for my company particularly that we are on our first year of operation,” he said. “It’s a huge first anniversary present for the company and I am overwhelmed.”
Benjamin said the company took off in April while the mine was still operational and at the time employed four young people.
He said the mine contributed 90 percent of their sales directly and 10 percent indirectly and the company experienced a rapid growth. Six months down the line the mine was shutdown and the sales shrunk.
The young entrepreneur said they hit rock bottom following the closure of the mine and they were forced to trim their staff to three as measures of keeping afloat.
Benjamin said the quality of their products managed to set the company apart from others that has been doing a similar business and won them most of the clients in Phikwe.
Although the company is still operational only in the small town it has managed to recover from the slump and it has hired two more staff members to complement the three as the demand grows.
“We pride ourselves with quality and good customer relations. That has propelled our growth and we have increased our staff to five. We have managed to employ two young people who previously worked for the mine.”
Benjamin said they are working on expanding their products range. He said they have been selling in bulk and plans are also in the pipeline to breaking down to selling in units to the retail stores.
“We are a growing company and we have big ambitions. We have started working on a range of perfumes and we will be unrolling the first batch in December. “We also are planning to breakdown our sales and also expand out of the town so that we can create more opportunities for employment for the youth,” he said.
The company buys their raw materials from South Africa and processes their products at their warehouse in Selibi Phikwe industrial.
Currently the company manufactures over 50 cleaning detergents, which includes Dishwashing liquid, hand wash, bath soaps, shampoos of all kinds and many others.