26 Jul 2020

Directors of Stoggo’s chicken farm in Francistown, Mr Norman Bright and Ms Joyce Bright have pleaded with government to review tenders allotted for poultry businesses in a manner which will favor both upcoming and established businesses.

In an interview, the duo said upcoming poultry farmers were faced with the challenge of competing for tenders with established businesses which usually get selected over small businesses.

They added that reviewing the tenders, would give small businesses an opportunity to grow.

“Already as upcoming poultry companies we are the market for established companies because we buy chicken feeds and medicines from them and yet we have to compete with them for government tenders and this does not benefit us,” said the directors.

The directors further urged government to be proactive in promoting locally produced products adding that the practice should be done continually and not during pandemics.

However, with the country grappling with COVID-19, the duo thanked the government for sustaining their businesses during lockdown with subsidies as they were able to pay their workers.

Stoggo’s chicken farm was established and started operating in year 2001 by the duo who at that time were both not satisfied with their monthly job incomes and therefore decided to venture into poultry to earn side money to cope with life demands.

Ms Bright said when establishing the company, acquiring land and start-up capital was a challenge, which then prompted them in starting the business with only one block that accommodated a capacity of 500 chickens for meat.

“Selling our chickens at that time was a problem especially that marketing was still a challenge for us entrepreneurs so people did not know who we were and the quality of our chickens but because we were committed to push this business we kept operating,” she said.

In 2003, she added that they applied for funding from Citizen Entrepreneurship Development Authority (CEDA) and were able to build two more blocks.

As the business grew, Ms Bright said she was then compelled to quit her other job to focus and manage the poultry business as demand in schools was growing, adding that they had to apply for another funding from CEDA.

Ms Bright said with the second funding they were able to buy freezer rooms, machinery and added more blocks which raised their holding capacity to 14 900 chickens.

She added that currently the business was doing well with the support from Batswana and from government tenders.

However, she noted that some Batswana supported foreign businesses than local businesses therefore urging local poultry farmers to take stock of how they operate their businesses and to sell quality products.

She said they had been to various trainings such as meat handling which was vital when operating a poultry business. “You need to learn how to rear, package and sell quality chickens that have a long span in order to beat competitors,” she added.

For his part, Mr Bright said to run a poultry business passion for poultry farming was important as it was not a smooth venture to tackle.

He said that although poultry farming was a lucrative business, there were some challenges such as dealing with chicken diseases and satisfying customer’s needs.

He added that most upcoming poultry farmers were failing to run for long as they had no love and patience for poultry business and were just in it for the profits. ENDS