Mthatha-based independent bread producer Mister Bread has completed a R22-million empowerment transaction boosting its black ownership to 70%.

“One of the most critical aspects of the transaction is that it takes Mister Bread one step nearer to a listing on the JSE,” said National Empowerment Fund (NEF) chief executive Philisiwe Buthelezi.

The transaction will see NEF holding 6% of Mister Bread alongside SMME-owned Tropical Paradise (39%), employees (14%), Mister Bread executive director Wandisile Mti (10%), management (5%) and Amendu Products (26%).

The company was founded 1992 and produces up to 9 000 loaves of bread an hour with annual sales of R155-million.

Some 70% of the company’s revenue is generated by rural market sales.

Mti said that because the rural market occupied such a large part of the company’s business, it had created transit stocking points within all Mister Bread’s urban centres in the form of containers, shops and trucks.

“As the product is a low-priced commodity and a staple food item, our target market comprises working class people, pensioners, grant earners, rural dwellers on dependant migrant and indigent worker remittances, and government feeding schemes,” Mti said.