Companies

Kenchic plans Sh350m Thika slaughter plant

kenchic

A Kenchic poultry farm in Athi River. The firm is planning to build another Sh350 million processing plant in Thika. Photo/FILE

Poultry company Kenchic is planning to build a Sh350 million chicken processing plant in Thika to feed increased demand for the local and export market.

The plant will have a capacity to slaughter 30,000 chickens per day, complementing its other Tigoni (Limuru) based processing facility.

The Thika plant will be built on a 24-acre piece of land in Ngoliba (adjacent to Thika-Garissa road) and which is currently being used to grow coffee and pineapples.

It proposes to build the factory within two years of receiving necessary regulatory approvals.

“The processing plant will require construction and operation of a purpose-designed slaughter house, and associated infrastructure,” says Kenchic in one of its regulatory filings.

The poultry firm’s clients include international franchises like Steers, Galitos, and Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), who order whole chicken, thighs, drumsticks and wings.

Kenchic, which produces about 600,000 layer and broiler chicks per week, also supplies chicken to in-flight caterer NAS Servair, leading hotels and fast food restaurants including over 30 Kenchic inns across the country.

The company also exports its products to Uganda and Tanzania among other countries.

Kenchic’s Kenyan business is made up of a processing plant in Tigoni, a broiler farm and hatchery in Athi River and another hatchery in Mombasa.

It also has six breeder farms in Kajiado and Naivasha and distribution centres in Nairobi, Mombasa, Nakuru, Kisumu, Meru and Nyeri. It is from the breeder farms that Kenchic sells chicken — such as the popular Kenbro breed — to farmers.

These farms also serve its Tigoni slaughterhouse and will be the source of live chicken for the upcoming Thika facility.

“Once the site is in operation, chicken will be bought from farmers and others sourced from existing Kenchic farms and transported to Thika via road, “the firm notes in the filing.

“After that, the chicken will be processed and later distributed to hotels and Kenchic outlets.”

Kenchic says 200 people will work at the Thika factory, most of whom will have been redeployed from the Tigoni slaughterhouse while others will be recruited from the Thika area.

Since 2010, the poultry company has injected a total of Sh1.5 billion into its breeding and hatchery facilities.

The company last year spent Sh800 million to expand the broiler farm and hatchery at Athi River ,with most of the money being used in acquiring new equipment from Germany.

In the past months, however, the firm has been forced to increase the prices of its products following the introduction of a 16 per cent VAT on animal feeds in October.

A 50-kilogramme bag of poultry starter mash is selling at Sh3,300 from Sh2,900.

These higher costs were passed on to customers, who, if the company’s claim of increasing demand is anything to go by, seem to have shrugged off the price adjustment.

The Economic Survey 2014 notes that the value of chicken and eggs sold last year increased 9.3 per cent to Sh7 billion from Sh6.4 billion in 2013.