KENCHIC INVESTS 1.5 BILLION SHILLINGS IN BREEDING AND HATCHERY DEVELOPMENT In order to meet the growing demand for poultry products, Kenchic Limited, the largest integrated poultry company in East and Central Africa, has invested 1.5 billion shillings over the last three years in breeding and hatchery development. Kenchic is the only licensed export slaughter house in Kenya for poultry products. The Company’s production facilities are located at Tigoni (meat processing plant), Athi River (broiler farm and hatchery facility) and six breeder farms on the plains of Kajiado and Naivasha. Kenchic was started in 1984 and its operations include the hatching of day old chicks at the Athi River plant. These are delivered everyday to the Company’s poultry centres in Nairobi, Mombasa, Nakuru, Kisumu and Nyeri and a satellite shop in Meru. Deliveries are also made to Kenchic’s appointed agents countrywide and once a week to Uganda and Tanzania. Jim Tozer, Kenchic Operations Manager, explained, “Recently the Company invested 800 million shillings in the expansion and installation of new state of the art equipment at the Athi River plant. This is the most advanced incubation system and has the capability to hatch one million chicks weekly. At the moment we are producing 600,000 chicks per week.” “Our new hatchery equipment is from Jamesway Incubator Company of Canada. This is one of the advanced incubator manufacturer organisations in the world and Kenchic becomes the first poultry company in Africa to own a Platinum model machine.” “The Athi River hatchery facility is the only one of its type in Africa. It is a biological factory where an egg goes through specialist incubation and hatching equipment to produce chicks of extreme potential and the highest quality. This is all done in an environmentally controlled building at the hatchery.” “The Kenchic Athi River plant is divided into broiler and layer areas. 75 per cent of chicks hatched at this plant are broilers and the rest are layers. With the new investment, the Company has increased employment for Kenyans at this facility.” -more- -2- “In preparation for the installation of the new machine, all our staff at the Kenchic Athi River plant underwent training conducted by specialists from Jamesway. In addition our facility’s Manager visited the USA for a three month study tour. To keep up with the latest trends, we hold four training sessions in a year which are carried out by overseas experts.” “Our hatchery has been audited by the Jamesway Incubator Company for best practices in poultry. We also use Kaizen which is a system of continuous improvement in quality, technology, processes, company culture, productivity, safety and leadership. This involves every employee from upper management to the junior staff who are encouraged to come up with suggestions which are written down, shared and implemented.” The Company’s Tigoni processing plant supplies chicken meat to international franchises such as Galitos, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), Steers, airline caterers like NAS, supermarkets, leading hotels, fast food restaurants including all the 30 franchise Kenchic Inns countrywide.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 09:01:19 +0000
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