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THE EXPORT AGENDA
ZAMBEEF: A PERFECT MEATY CASE STUDY By Josiah Mwangi enya’s beef sector can largely be described as ‘lacklustre’ where each player does their own thing, the value chain segmented, unsynchronised and hardly informs processing and export timelines. But a look at Zambia reveals concerted efforts to attract billion-shilling investments into the sector. Josiah Mwangi who lived in Zambia a few years ago, reflects on the farm-to-folk meat processor and dairy processor, with excerpts from Zambeef website …
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I lived in Zambia a few years ago and came across a unique meat butchery concept that I was interested to learn more about. Zambeef used to run local butcheries in Chingola where I lived, which is a small mining town in the Copperbelt region. The entire business concept was new to me from Nairobi, where running butcheries is a highly individual-led retail trade and the value chain fragmented. Started in 1994, Zambeef has grown from a small butchery in Kabwata area in Lusaka to become the most successful cold chain food processing and retailing businesses in the South African region.
Meat Edition
Zambeef Products Plc is one of the largest integrated cold chain food products in Africa that is involved in the primary production, processing, distribution and retailing of beef, chicken, pork, milk, eggs, dairy products, fish, flour and stockfeed, throughout Zambia and the surrounding region, as well as Nigeria and Ghana. Its subsidiaries include Master Meats Production Company of Nigeria.
Slaughters 60,000 cattle per year
Produces 8 million liters per year
Unlike Kenya, where butcheries are run by individual owners, Zambeef has 228 retail outlets throughout Zambia and West Africa where it employs over 7,400 people with a monthly wage bill of Ksh. 228 million (USD 2 million). It boasts of five ultra-modern abattoirs and three feedlots strategically located around Zambia that can host up to 24,000 heads of cattle at a time. Zambeef has heavily invested in chicken and egg production with a capacity to host 8.8m broilers and produces up to 22.4-million-day-old chicks a year.
Processes 90,000 hides per year