By Own Correspondent| The Cold Storage Commission (CSC) has received a major boost after a United Kingdom headquartered firm Boustead Beef invested US$400 million into the parastatal.

Boustead Beef Zimbabwe managing director Nick Havercroft said his company has entered into an agreement with the Government to buy into CSC

Said Havercroft:.

He however said the capital injection will be spread over five years.

“We were focused on US$130 million but we have secured more markets and we are focusing way over US$400 million over the next five years, a lot of that is obviously for securing the beef.

We have very good finance, very good off takes for the beef export orders. Our focus is going to be higher than what we had actually planned so our investment is going to be bigger than what we had anticipated.”

The company said that it has already procured machinery worth about US$16 million and will be delivered to its headquarters in Bulawayo.

CSC director of marketing Isaiah Machingura revealed last week that the investor has already started paying full salaries to employees.

He said:

“Wages are being paid as of February onwards and there won’t be any stopover. More people are going to be employed for all the CSC branches.

In operations, we will be talking of slaughtering about 500 to 600 animals a day.

It really needs a command of labour. We are talking of a lot of by-products that are going to be produced here, for instance, we have tallow, which will benefit local soap manufacturers instead of them importing.”-StateMedia