Alcoholic Beverages Made in Uganda: Moses Mugisha Shares his Goals and Vision for Leading Distillers

Interview with Moses Mugisha, Director of Leading Distillers

Could you give us a historical background of Leading Distillers?

When I was a young boy, I dropped out of school during second grade and started working on the street, selling small things like sweets, biscuits and chapatis. That is when I developed the idea of becoming a businessman. After a certain period, I started working for other people to make money. Then I developed into a better business person whereby I started importing goods from other countries. Among those goods were wines and spirits. It was a very nice business and I realized that I could also become a manufacturer and trade in wines and spirits. I started on a small scale, manufacturing spirits, and Leading Distillers started with its first brand: Waragi. Little by little, the business started picking up here in Uganda.

When I realized that the business kept on growing, I got out of the home manufacturing industry and shifted to a medium scale industry. The business kept on growing up to this level. It was not easy. I passed through a lot of challenges by losing capital through negligence, poor planning and many other things, but by God’s mercy I overcame and I reached up to this level of manufacturing. Right now, we are manufacturing a wide variety of products, such as: gin, whiskey, Leading Waragi, Herdsman Whiskey, Pearl brands including Ocean Breeze, Sea Breeze, Coconut, Bay Breeze, etc. And we are looking forward to manufacturing many other brands. Two years ago, we developed an idea of exporting our products to neighboring countries and it has been going well. Although we began in a challenging period, the business is promising. Right now we are trading within the whole of East Africa, and we are looking forward to trading within the whole of Africa. From there, we shall reach overseas.

What markets do you export to and what products do you export?

We are exporting to all our neighboring countries: Tanzania, Southern Sudan, DRC and Kenya. All our brands have started moving in those countries, despite the economic crisis that they are also facing. These brands include our Leading Waragi gin, Herdsman Whiskey, all our varieties of ready to drink products such as Pearl Sea Breeze, Pearl Ocean Breeze, Pearl Bay Breeze, Pearl Coconut, Pearl Black Berry, etc. In other words, we are exporting all of our products to those neighboring countries.

Since the pandemic happened, have you added any new product to your range?

Since the pandemic, we have not gone for a new innovation. We are still dealing with the same products for the last two and a half years.

What makes your product different from the others?

Our products are better than most of the other products, because first of all, we are using high level of technology in terms of manufacturing. Then, we are using a high class of ingredients, like flavors, additives, and others, which we import from Europe, mainly Germany. That is different from what you usually find in our markets.

When the pandemic happened, what has been the strategy for you as a businessman to still maintain the business in the country?

We made sure to cut expenditures, operation costs and manufacturing costs. We also had to downsize on the human resource side. We reduced our fleet too. So, basically, it was a matter of cutting down our costs to overcome the challenges, and remain afloat in this tough economic crisis.

What is your vision for Leading Distillers in the next five years?

I am looking forward to introducing smart beers in the coming future. And my vision right now is to make sure that I overcome this pandemic, I continue with the growth that we have been having so that we can penetrate our business within the whole of African countries, and maybe we can also export to other countries overseas.

What is your main focus at the moment?

We have been trying to have better management, including better country managers and better human resources as well, so that we can grow our business steadily.

ABOUT LEADING DISTILLERS: Leading Distillers is a subsidiary of Leading Group of Companies (LGoC) in Uganda. With over 20 years’ experience in distilling and blending alcoholic beverages (gin, whiskey and ready to drink alcoholic beverages), Leading Distillers has emerged as one of the prominent companies in East Africa, delivering quality and impacting communities through job creation and social economic development.

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