In September 2015, Lesaffre, a global player in yeasts and fermentation, established Lesaffre Zimbabwe through the acquisition of a majority stake in Anchor Yeast.

During the past year, Lesaffre has made a series of major structural investments in its Zimbabwean subsidiary “Lesaffre Zimbabwe”. “The investments include the inaugural Baking Center and the ongoing modernization and extension projects at the Gweru plant. These investments were made in collaboration with the best local and external suppliers, with the aim of improving competitiveness within Zimbabwe and beyond the borders,” explains Bernard Laguerre, General Manager of Lesaffre Zimbabwe.

Lesaffre celebrates the official opening of the first Baking Center in Southern Africa. The Baking Center, is a center of expertise in bread making. It will be dedicated to training, technical support, product and process development and commercial presentations of the products. The baking center will also equip some vulnerable children in Orphanage homes with life baking skills to enable them to find jobs and contribute to the development of Zimbabwe.

The Baking Center is a catalyst of ideas, a constant source for devising and perfecting solutions for improving recipes or bread making techniques, creating and developing new products and expanding knowledge and expertise. This Baking Center will be part of a network born in France in 1974 and today composed of 38 centers, with more than 300 technicians in bakery, present on the 5 continents.

“Lesaffre is very pleased to continue to invest in Zimbabwe, wher we have been present for just over a year. Currently, Lesaffre is in the process of upgrading and expanding the Gweru yeast plant, the main focus being to improve quality and increase exports into the region,” says Antoine Baule, CEO of Lesaffre.