Dar based Serengeti Breweries workers donate blood

SERENGETI Breweries Limited (SBL) employees have donated blood to Temeke Hospital in Dar es Salaam as a way of boosting Tanzania’s health sector. The blood donation is part of a number of community support activities held to celebrate the company’s Health and Safety Week, an annual event dedicated by the beer and spirits firm in creating staff awareness on the importance of maintaining health and safety standards at the workplace. Thanking SBL workers for volunteering to donate blood, Dar es Salaam Plant Brewery Manager Alice Kilembe said the exercise is also is in line with the company’s community support programmes that aim at uplifting the living condition of the people. “We sincerely want to commend and thank our staff for stepping forward to donate blood. We believe this will go a long way in saving the lives of those in need of it and in the process, contribute to the wellbeing of our people,” Kilembe said over the weekend. Earlier, the SBL Dar es Salaam plant had participated in an environmental clean-up exercise within the compound of Temeke in what the plant brewery manager said is “a gesture of supporting the government’s call to observe cleanliness in public places.” According to Kilembe, SBL has not had a workplace- related incident in the past three years as a result of “regular training of its staff and industrial precaution measures which have enabled the company to meet world health and safety standards at its workplace.” The hospital’s Acting Chief Medical Officer, Dr Emmanuel Sarakikya, commended the company for donating blood and joining the hospital in cleanliness exercise. “Other hospitals and institutions should emulate Temeke Hospital,” he said. Incorporated in 1988 as Associated Breweries, SBL is one of the largest beer companies in Tanzania, with its beer brands accounting for over 20 per cent of the market by volume. SBL has three operating plants in Dar es Salaam with a production capacity of 350,000 HL, Mwanza with a capacity of 650,000 HL and the state-of-the-art brewery in Moshi which was commissioned in January 2012 that has a production capacity of 500,000 HL expandable to 800,000 HL.