Ombanje Chicken Project
Hangala Foods, the agribusiness arm of Hangala Group recognized the need for greater industrialisation f domestic agricultural production and for diversification away from excess reliance on consumption of more expensive sources of protein such as beef.
As a result, in 2017, Hangala Foods initiated a deliberate and thorough investigation into the operational, technical, and market feasibility of a second large-scale poultry meat producer in Namibia, supported by poultry experts from South Africa under the leadership of PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC).
The NAD 1.4 million feasibility study conducted an intensive study of the domestic poultry industry, the feasibility of a new entrant and the inherent capex, construction requirements and management criteria needed in order to make an impactful mark in the industry. The aim is to ensure that we significantly contribute to the supply of domestically produced poultry in tandem with generating a reasonable return for our investors.
It was thus concluded that Hangala Foods, through an SPV titled Ombanje Chicken Enterprises (Pty) Ltd (OCE) would look to erect a circa N$ 500 million integrated poultry plant. The poultry plant will consist of broiler houses along with an abattoir that would be erected on Farm Ombanje in the Otavi area. The plant is set to employ over 300 people with an anticipated production of 100,000 birds slaughtered per week.
In 2019, OCE was delighted to bring on board the Development Bank of Namibia as its lead debt financier. The financing is conditioned and subject to a thorough scrutinization of the viability of the project and ensuring that the project meets the requirements by satisfying DBN's internal processes.
DBN has illustrated its commitment by assisting OCE with project preparation financing to the amount of N$ 2 million through DBN's Project Preparation Fund (PPF).
The PPF is a fund set up by DBN that assists large-scale infrastructural Namibian projects that will have a significant impact on various domestic sectors to reach bankability.
The OCE PPF was utilized on industry and global professionals, preliminary engineering designs through appointed engineers Windhoek Consulting Engineers (WCE), an extensive route to market, engaging with third-party distributors along and not limited to initial-environmental clearance.
The Hangala Foods team is proud to announce that as of June 2023, positive feedback was provided to the team with regards to reaching financial close. It is thus the intention of OCE to have clarity and concrete timelines of the project by the end of May 2024.