CFI to Raise Zimbabwean Chicken Output

ZIMBABWE - CFI Holdings has commissioned some environmentally-controlled broiler houses at its Glenara Estates, which will see its breeding capacity increasing by 35 per cent.
calendar icon 28 November 2012
clock icon 3 minute read

Through its division - Crest Poultry Group - the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange-listed conglomerate invested US$2.6 million into the project from loans it got from the PTA Bank, the Government's Distressed and Marginalised Areas Fund and Afreximbank, reports The Herald.

"We can now breed about 620,000 broilers at any given time from about 460,000 birds we were keeping before installation of these facilities," CPG managing director Dr Tapera Mpezeni said in an interview on the sidelines of a tour of the new facility meant to appraise the financiers on the project.

The birds are slaughtered after six weeks.

The old housing facilities are open-sided with capacity of about 460 000 birds. Studies have shown that mortality rates in conventional houses were higher than those in controlled houses. On average, mortality rates in open-sided housing average between eight and 10 per cent against between two per cent and three per cent in for computerised environmentally-controlled housing.

At the new breeding capacity levels, Dr Mpezeni said the company was now in a better position to stand competition from imports, particularly from Brazil.

CFI consultant, Don McDevitt, said the group intended to build more houses at an estimated cost of US$5 million. He added that plans were also in place to build an abattoir at the estates to achieve an integrated poultry facility.

"We need about US$5 million to triple the (breeding) capacity of the new facility and to build an abattoir so that we create a centre of poultry," said Mr McDevitt.

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