Hippo Valley Estate () is a sugar estate found near the town of

Chiredzi Chiredzi is a town in Masvingo province in south-east Zimbabwe. It is located near the Runde River, which has a tributary called the ' Chiredzi'. As the administrative center for Chiredzi District, it is where both the rural and district counci ...

Chiredzi District A district in Zimbabwe, Masvingo Province Chiredzi found in the district, is one of a number of centers for HIV/AIDS treatment in the province. The district's Hippo Valley Hospital is one of a number of centers for HIV/AIDS treatment in the pro ...

of southeastern

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

, on the

Runde River The Runde River (formerly Lundi River) is a river in southeastern Zimbabwe. It is a tributary of the Save River and its major tributaries include the Ngezi River, Tokwe River, Mutirikwe River and Chiredzi River. Characteristics and geography ...

near the border with

Mozambique Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...

Background

It was established in 1956 as a citrus estate and soon it diversified with the first cane planted three years later in 1959.AngloAmerica Op

accessed 28 February 2008) Canned Hippo Valley fruit was exported across southern

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

until the 1970s. In the wake of the sugar marker crush in 1975, the estate initiated irrigation programs to water its sugar plantations. Today, it is the major producer of sugar and in conjunction with

Triangle Estate A triangle is a polygon with three edges and three vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC. In Euclidean geometry, any three points, when non-collinear ...

, has a fifty:fight holding in nearby Mkwasine Estate.

Operations

The sugar plantations cover 124 square kilometres, and the company employs around 5,000 people. The

Cane sugar mill A sugar cane mill is a factory that processes sugar cane to produce raw sugar, raw or white sugar. The term is also used to refer to the equipment that crushes the sticks of sugar cane to extract the juice. Processing There are a number of st ...

of Hippo Valley Estate has a capacity of 300,000 tonnes of sugar per year, mostly raw

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

and brown sugar. It also produces

molasses Molasses () is a viscous substance resulting from refining sugarcane or sugar beets into sugar. Molasses varies in the amount of sugar, method of extraction and age of the plant. Sugarcane molasses is primarily used to sweeten and flavour foods ...

which is then turned into

ethanol Ethanol (abbr. EtOH; also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound. It is an Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol with the chemical formula . Its formula can be also written as or (an ethyl ...

. It is a major employer of the residents of Tshovani, the lone high density suburb in

Stock exchange

The company is a

publicly listed company A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of share capital, stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in Over-the-counter (finance), over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) comp ...

on the

Zimbabwean Stock Exchange The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, or ZSE, is the official stock exchange of Zimbabwe. Its history dates back to 1896 but has only been open to foreign investment since 1993. The exchange has about a dozen members, and currently lists 63 equities. T ...

(under the ticker HIPPO). Tongaat Hulett Sugar is the largest

shareholder A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of a corporation is an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the legal own ...

via its wholly owned subsidiary Triangle Sugar and owns 50.35% of Hippo Valley Estates. Other shareholders include

Tate & Lyle Tate & Lyle PLC is a British-headquartered, global supplier of food and beverage ingredients to industrial markets. It was originally a sugar refining business, but from the 1970s it began to diversify, eventually divesting its sugar business i ...

, the British agro company (10%).

Relationship with Chiredzi

The company has a special relationship with the town. In addition to providing schools and healthcare facilities, it also supplies all the

water Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a ...

used in the town. It also provides employment to the locals and thereby increasing their standard of living.

Farm invasions

In 2004, parts of the estate were listed for confiscation by the government of Zimbabwe as part of its land reform project. Hippo valley is an estate encompassed by the triangle estate and the mkwasini estate, all of them producers of sugar plantation. With the advent of farm invasions that started in 2000, many changes have occurred to the estate as some parts of it have been taken over by peasants.Parliament Repor

(accessed 28 February 2008)

References

External links

Tongaat Hulett Sugar

Triangle Sugar
* {{Masvingo Province Masvingo Province Companies listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange Agriculture companies of Zimbabwe Chiredzi District Sugar companies 1955 establishments in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland