By Almot Maqolo

HARARE – Delivery services can help your bakery business grow with the right system. Delivery is a more important part of bakery success today and bakeries need the right vehicle for the job.
This comes as leading bakery, Bakers Inn, received 50 Fuso brand commercial trucks from Zimoco, propelling it to deliver bread to all areas of the country.

About Bakers Inn
Currently, Baker's Inn runs 256 Trucks for their various operations which are gradually to be upgraded by the introduction of the new Fuso fleet.
Baker's Inn is part of Innscor Africa Limited, which is one of the largest listed companies in Zimbabwe. Through its various operations, Baker's Inn produces 450 000 loaves daily and distributes their products country wide. Depending on the availability of wheat supplies, the company plans to grow this already impressive production figure to 1 million loaves produced daily in the near future.
There have been ongoing investments into capacity expansion and enhancement initiatives.

FUSO 557136
The FUSO 557136 is a 4 ton 3 seater, 3.9 Litre (Direct Injection) diesel engine commercial truck of Japanese origin with multiple use applications which will become a capable work horse in the Baker's Inn Logistics Fleet. To further support the FUSO brand locally, ZIMOCO which is the official FUSO distributor provides full service back up, parts and warranty support.

ZIMOCO is poised to leverage its many years' of experience in the commercial vehicle sales and aftersales arena to provide a strong support pillar not only to Baker's Inn Logistics but other organisations and individuals who entrust in the FUSO model for use in their businesses. Baker's Inn service depots countrywide are being upgraded and eventually accredited by Daimler Truck Southern Africa. Furthermore, technical and driver training is in process for 30 technicians for Bakers Inn by ZIMOCO / Daimler Trucks Southern Africa.
Benefits of FUSO FE7-136 Commercial Truck
- Product carrying capacity of up to 4,000 loaves per truck
- Low maintenance requirement.
- Safety Oriented Standard Features such as seat belts, driver orientated cabin design with ease of access to storage spaces for better driver attention.
- 100 Liter fuel tank reduces need for regular refueling between deliveries.
- FUSO tried and tested durability and dependability.

Here are the views of the companies
Zimoco
Zimoco chief executive officer Bob Crossely told this publication that they have been talking to Bakers Inn about supplying these vehicles for the last 5 years.
“We have managed now to give them a better option for the delivery of their bread to all parts of the country,”
Zimoco does the sales and service.
“So we are there to support them. We will be operating in parts of the country which includes Mutare, Bulawayo and Harare and sorting out our trucks in their workshop to look after the vehicles when they are in operation.”

Bakers Inn
Chief operating officer Benjamin Mavros said the company has been looking for durable vehicles. There are so many durable vehicles out there the likes of Isuzu, Shacman and Man but unfortunately the company opted for FUSO.
“So we had to make a decision as a company and we have decided to go with Zimoco. We are confident that they can give us the best service and aftersales to support these trucks,” he said.
He said it is essential that we make sure that these vehicles can penetrate all the marginal areas of the country. Also to ensure that city dwellers get fresh bread every single day.

Why FUSO?
The cost of running per kilometer is the most economical that the company has seen so far. “So that was a very big driver in terms of our decision making and we hope that on the other hand Zimoco has the spares, expertise in the country to help support us.”

Cost of trucks
There was no exact figure of how much each truck cost. However, the COO managed to reveal an estimate. “I currently can't disclose that because it's for our Finance Director and I can't recall exactly the figure that we spend,” he said. “I think the vehicles are in the region of US$20 000 – US$30 000 a vehicle and we have been grateful that we manage to secure the funding to do that and let us hope that we continue to invest into the country.”
Possibility of adding more fleet
The company hopes that the economy will grow as it is very much likely to invest more in these trucks. “But these are the first so we are going to see how it goes. We want to be conservative and steady and then hopefully in the near future we will be in a position to continue to add to our fleet,” he said.

Daimler Trucks Truck Southern Africa
Chief executive officer Michael Dietz mentioned that the life span of these depends on the road infrastructure in a country they are operating in. Most of the country’s roads are in bad shape and it requires a car no to miss its service schedule.

Also weight is different depending on the operation.
“Depends a little bit on to the infrastructure and for sure to the annual mileage normally in our Fuso customers hand buying these trucks is normal lies anywhere between 4 - 7 years,” he said.

The company is taking care of engineering and assembling these trucks. Globally it is in charge of the wholesale business. It sells all these units to its exclusive partners into the markets they are doing the business. This is their business concept.