Breeding Stock for Mega Poultry Plant Arrives

NAMIBIA - The first batch of breeding stock for Namiba's first large-scale commercial poultry plant has arrived at the plant at Klein Okapuka Farm on the outskirts of Windhoek.
calendar icon 11 November 2011
clock icon 3 minute read

It is now a wait of 43 weeks before the first batch of eggs is produced.

The chickens will be sold live to consumers at 63 weeks of age.

General Manager of Namibia Poultry Industries, Gys White, said the target is to have the first batch of chicken on the market by March next year.

"We are extremely excited. When the first parent stock arrived, we knew history in the food production industry just started," explained Mr White.

Namibia Poultry Industries, a N$500 million investment, is the subsidiary of NMI Group. AllAfrica.com reports that the first batch of breeding stock of about 16 500 chicks arrived in the first week of November.

The company said the breeding stock was the first batch and every eight weeks, new parent stock would arrive to build up the flock to a point where sufficient eggs are produced to hatch the required day old chicks for the broiler farms.

Construction of the Namibia Poultry Industries plant started in April and is scheduled to be completed sometime next year. It is hoped that the plant will be in production by the end of March 2012, with 450 permanent employees.

The construction phase employs more than 298 people.

To set up the poultry plant, NMI Group raised N$150 million from own funds, a further N$187 million as loan funding from Namibian commercial banks, while the Industrial Development Corporation of Southern Africa invested N$150 million.

The company says the investment in poultry has already created spin-off investments for the country as it creates synergies among NMI Group subsidiaries, with additional employment opportunities. Besides Namibia Poultry Industries, NMI Group also owns the Namib Mills and Feedmaster companies.

Feedmaster, the subsidiary responsible for animal feed, is investing N$80 million in its plants to strengthen its production capacity.

André Snyman, Feedmaster's managing director, says the poultry investment created "an opportunity for Feedmaster to further expand its business [into] a local broiler industry".

Currently the Feedmaster plant is not able to produce high quality poultry feed due to insufficient manufacturing capacity and an old factory. Hence, the company is investing N$65 million in a new feed mill, which would strictly serve the broiler, layer and pig industries with a combined capacity of 56 000 tonnes per annum and creation of 40 new jobs.

The company will also upgrade its existing factory in the Northern Industrial area into a "specialist ruminant feed factory that complies with European Union Standards for beef export purposes".

For this, the company is investing N$15 million.

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