President Emmerson Mnangagwa officially commissioned the new corporate headquarters of the Davipel Group of Companies in the Sunway City Industrial Park on Wednesday, August 5, 2026, in what officials are calling another major vote of confidence in Zimbabwe’s economic reform agenda. The President described the US$15 million project as a significant private sector investment and a massive vote of confidence in the country’s economic reforms.
The complex brings together a modern corporate headquarters with a 10-tonne-per-hour stockfeed processing plant, a snack manufacturing facility, and advanced milling and processing technology under one roof. Declaring the facility open, the President formally pronounced the Davipel Headquarters, along with its Agri-Milling, Stock-Feed and Snacks Manufacturing plants, officially commissioned. He emphasised that processing Zimbabwe’s own agricultural produce locally keeps value within the country, creates jobs, and builds a more resilient manufacturing sector.
It is not the President’s first visit to the site. He recalled last touring the company in June 2018, when he commissioned a manufacturing facility then worth about US$12 million — meaning this latest expansion, eight years on, more than doubles the scale of the original investment. He congratulated founders Mr and Mrs Norupiri and their team, describing the company as an exemplary case study in Zimbabwe’s industrialisation journey.
Davipel’s roots are humble. Founder Davison Norupiri, together with his wife Pelagia, started out as transport brokers, securing tenders from major Harare companies and subcontracting the work using hired trucks — building the business from a single rented room in the capital’s CBD. Two decades later, that modest beginning has grown into one of Zimbabwe’s leading agro-industrial groups, now employing hundreds of Zimbabweans and serving both domestic and regional markets. The company’s Maize Milling division produces cereals under the SUNNY brand, while its Snacks division manufactures the popular JUMBO corn snacks, with installed production capacity of around 5,000 metric tonnes per month.
Industry officials say the expansion reflects a broader resurgence in Zimbabwean manufacturing. Industry and Trade Minister Mangaliso Ndlovu noted that Sunway City Special Economic Zone is now home to over 40 companies, and pointed to Davipel’s growth as evidence of the success of the country’s national industrialisation policy. “We have a duty to reduce the import bill, and that is exactly what is happening in the manufacturing sector,” he said.
The commissioning comes at a time when national manufacturing capacity utilisation has climbed to 61.2 percent, up sharply from just 35 percent in 2019, even as the country continues to spend an estimated $2.5 billion annually on imports that local industry could produce. Investments like Davipel’s, officials say, are exactly the kind of local value-addition Zimbabwe needs to change that picture.
