SA court grapples with Zimbabwe GMO scrap

If Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed food giant Innscor was hoping to avoid press scrutiny, it could hardly have chosen a more self-destructive path than seeking a gag order against journalist Rutendo Matinyarare, a prolific campaigner against the deteriorating quality of food in that country. The story has hit the headlines in Zimbabwe, with hundreds of thousands of engagements on social media. Moneyweb reports that the controversy has stirred the Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe to issue a statement, saying Matinyarare’s claims are baseless and harmful to the industry. Matinyarare refuses to back down, and has published results from a French safety laboratory showing high levels of genetically-modified organism (GMO) in a food sample produced by Innscor companies. GMO is banned in Zimbabwe and several other African countries as it is deemed to be harmful to human health. The gag order was granted against Matinyarare and his company Frontline Strat Marketing Consultancy by Justice Namhla Siwendu in the Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) on 9 January, pending the anticipated launch of a further action by Innscor seeking damages against Matinyarare. The order required Matinyarare to delete an X account with the handle ‘Innscor has destroyed the taste of Zim food’ and two video clips entitled ‘The Innscor problem explained’, on Twitter and Facebook. Matinyarare’s legal team says it is highly irregular for a Zimbabwean company to approach an SA court for relief against Matinyarare, as he was in Zimbabwe at the time papers were served on him. The legal team has approached the court for a reconsideration of the gag order, and that case will be heard on 13 March.

Deposing for Innscor Africa in the gag order case, company secretary Andrew Lorimer gets to the heart of the complaint by pointing to some of the offending and allegedly defamatory material, published on the Frontline website: ‘Zimbabwe used to produce some of the best-tasting organic yellow fat beef, pork and chicken globally, and we exported excellent beef to the UK. We also had exceptional broiler chicken and pork until Innscor and the introduction of hybrid chickens and franchenstein (Frankenstein) 16 tit porkers.’ Moneyweb notes that Innscor is controlled by Zinona Koudounaris, one of Zimbabwe’s wealthiest men, reportedly worth US$734m in 2022. He and business partner Michael Fowler founded Innscor in 1996 and went on to build a massive food empire that now spans eight African countries. The company employs more than 10 000 staff, supports more than 200 small-scale farmers and makes huge food donations to the needy in Zimbabwe, according to its court filings.