Guinness uses sorghum from Cameroon in its beer.

Guinness Cameroon, a subsidiary of the British company Diageo, has spent over €13 million on grain supplies since 2018. Guinness Cameroon will soon be able to work with 4,500 sorghum farmers in northern Cameroon.

For the past five years, Diageo’s subsidiary has sourced all of its cereals from various cooperatives in order to produce the Harp Premium brand of beer.
According to Andrew Ross, the head of Guinness Cameroon, “it is brewed with more than 75% local materials [sorghum, sugars, and ethanol].” Annual revenues average 2.8 billion CFA francs (€4.26 million) thanks to this partnership with the country’s second-largest brewer.

Since 2018, the company has spent 8.7 billion CFA francs on cereals, totaling 34,000 tonnes. For its part, Guinness has invested more than 3 billion CFA francs in adapting its production line. In addition, the brewer provides farmers with improved seeds and constructs water points.

The Diageo subsidiary and Cameroonian cooperatives are considering extending their partnership by cultivating maize, which is high in starch, in order to preserve their relationships with local farmers.