From my Memories: Frozy

Greetings.

It feels good to get back to writing ways after a week of absence. The circumstances that kept me from swinging the pen have been dealt with and I am back now. My only worry is that this article may not have the patronage it needs as I will not be able to share it on usual platform namely WhatsApp. Again, I have dealt with the reasons I am not on WhatsApp currently and my absence on the popular social network is just a matter of choice. It is good to take breaks from some social platforms, however inconvenient that may be.

I happened to be looking at my social feed earlier today. For some reason, Facebook has decided to give us an opportunity to revisit our memories from way back by recycling our posts. Probably one of the nicest features and one of the reasons I still find FB relevant to date.

So… What did I see? You are probably cooling down with a Fanta or Thumbs Up as you are reading this but you might remember the time that one drink took the market by storm. Yeah. Frozy. It was in 2016 when the drink made its debut on the market and quickly dislodged the traditional soft drinks as the best-selling drink. The reasons were simple, really. “Fulo” was an affordable drink which made it relatable to many. Who doesn’t like a cheap drink? And then there was the packaging. A nice 500 ml plastic bottle which could easily be reused to package a good dose of thobwa. The distribution? Well. It was as easy and straightforward as it could get. People could easily import it from Mozambique through whichever border and supply to vendors at their local trading center. Just like that and people from all walks of life were able to enjoy a nice drink from or neighbor in different flavors.

For some time, I had been skeptical to take the drink. My first time with it came when I met one Joe Wire (also known as Dr Joseph Mkandawire or Bambo Mkandawire) who was visiting a lonely soul in Lunzu. This was the time when we were transitioning from being medical students to being doctors. Long boring “holiday”, that was. Joe, for some reason was feeling hot after a long walk in the October sun and he couldn’t resist the urge to buy the two of us “Frozy wa green”. If my memory serves me right, he did not finish his drink and he ended up giving half of it to a kid who was passing by. For security reasons, I will not mention what happened to mine. Long story short, I managed to have a taste of the drink.

I was talking about what I saw on my Facebook memories feed this morning. Pepani, but I just had to introduce the issue before talking about the memories. I will continue digressing so that the memories can tie it all together. Shortly after the introduction of this Mozambican drink on the market, there were calls by the Malawi Bureau of Standards to ban it. Issues? Incorrect labelling and unsafe quantities of citric acid in the drink. Sounds familiar, right? Same here. Following the ban, MBS instructed all wholesalers and retailers to declare the amount of the drink in their custody for collection and proper disposal. Having known the trail from the manufacturer to the user, I doubted there were any people who made such declarations and that there was a single bottle of Frozy that was disposed through the bureau.

Following the ban, many took it to the social media to express their anger; the first group towards the ban of the drinks and the second towards the first group. The reason this came out for me is that there were three people from three different professions that commented on the drinks issue. Everyone drinks, anyway.

I will start with the programmer (or systems developer, as he may like to identify himself). He argued that the whole ban was a joke. In his view, MBS is not accredited on the international scene and had no say on such a thing as a Mozambican drink. Whether that line of reasoning was right or not should be left for another day, but to add some humor to it, he went on to say that what the bureau had done was more like an ugly guy calling an ugly girl ugly. Whatever that means. Hypocrisy, maybe.

Then came the other two who were in support of the ban, first the journalist (who I am told is on his way to the bar (judiciary thing, eti?) He came in and drummed support for the bureau of standards arguing that the guys are the ones who have been protecting us from substandard foods all along; and that if they said there was something wrong with the drink, then there was something wrong. He went on to say that if we needed some soft drinks, we could go on and buy the Fanta we had all been drinking for the past few “centuries”. To finish off, he called on MBS to ban Manica and Impala alcohol brands from Mozambique. We cannot be sure as to whether he was sober when drafting the post or whether he would own it to date, but he wrote what he wrote and somehow it made sense. We can argue as to whether MBS really protect us this evening when ESCOM loan us back the power we deserve.

The most relevant person to comment on this happened to be a nutritionist and ironically it happened to be the shortest of them all. In his two sentences, he talked of how MBS was only there to protect the lives of Malawians. He concluded by lamenting on how Malawians failed to grasp a thing or two about something as simple as food standards.

Despite some noises (there were no demonstrations and petitions, then), the ban remained sustained and the drink was taken off the market. People made video clips that showed them mourning the demise of Frozy, but that was all. Carlsberg Malawi raised the prices of soft drinks but with no competing Mozambicans sales remained relatively stable. It was later in February, 2017 that the ban on the drink was lifted, probably following adjustments to the labelling and citric acid content. The drink, however, did not bounce back with the same momentum it had initially come with on the market initially. That was probably due to the love of citric acid and other harmful chemicals in beverages by the local Malawians.

From my memories, I brought you a story of the politics and safety surrounding food and other products on the Malawian market. If you follow the activities of the bureau, you could also talk about the issue of selective application of regulations. I will not talk about that but this sort of relates to the last article on facts and opinions. It also related to the many times that I have used this pulpit to preach standards. Eeetu. Probably the most lesson deficient article in recent memory, but it has its own relevance. Looking at a couple of online articles I have learnt a few things on business, regulation, politics and safety. I cannot share those but I will leave it to you to figure them out.

Have a lovely weekend and for the few of you that will get this article through whichever means, do share it with others.

From the stone age (where there is no WhatsApp), I bring you dear reader… Frozy!