SME’S TO BENEFIT FROM GATE SHOP

MATSAPHA– Small and medium enterprises specialising in the culinary industry have had their costs minimised by the opening of Umbuluzi Valley sales gate shop at Mathangeni.

The shop that retails in chicken produce, beef, pork and game had its doors opened to the public yesterday. The director of the shop, David Lourens, said the establishment of the business was meant to take it to the people and cutting costs they may incur in terms of transport when travelling to bigger shopping complexes.

He said the investment, which is worth over E4.5 million had already yielded positive results for the community in that it employed eight people adding to the 85 personnel employed at the factory located about five kilometres from the gate shop.

Lourens said the business was a long-term investment that they were hoping shall expand into other towns. He said the demand for their products was high given that in December they sourced about six metric tonnes of pork from local farmers. “We are supporting local farmers in that we buy all our products locally such that in the past months we procured 300 tonnes of chickens from local farmers.”

Furthermore, he said last month, they sourced eight tonnes of beef from local farmers. He said the idea of setting up the gate shop in Matsapha was aimed at minimising costs to their clients who are mostly SMEs. Worth noting is that Matsapha has a surplus of restaurants and roadside chicken braai  stalls which, according to Lourens, were their major clients.

Meanwhile, according to the Jabulani Mabuza-led Ministry of Agriculture, in the second quarter of 2019, an income of E47 070 223 was generated in through broiler production and sales. During this period, it was reported that about 1 125 638 birds were sold while in the pork industry about 418.3 metric tonnes of pork was produced generating E14 million.

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This revenue was generated during the second quarter of the 2019/20 financial year. Worth noting is that during this period, the country suspended animal imports from neighbouring South Africa for a second time in 2019 following an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. Despite this ban, local farmers were able to produce and supply the local demand with 7 228 pigs. During this period, Lubombo came out tops with the production and sale of 137 794 kilogrammes (kg) of pigs thus generating revenue of E4 822 790.

The Shiselweni Region had the second highest produce as 134 400kgs of pork were produced. This generated E4 569 600 for the farmers. On the other hand, the Manzini Region came third with the production of 98 638kgs which was valued at E3 634 610 while the Hhohho Region had the least production of pork at 47 472kgs worth E1 703 502.

The quarter ended with a total of 54 355 pigs countrywide which was a 9.59 per cent increment from the first quarter which had 1 164 registered farmers. The increment in production could also be attributed to an addition of 42 farmers in the Ministry of Agriculture’s database. This amounts to 1 227 registered farmers.

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