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How To Start A Frozen Chicken Business In Nigeria

Frozen chicken sales and production business is a multi-million dollar industry. It is rightly so because many prefer to buy frozen chicken basically because its convenient to cook. You will not go through the stress of slaughtering the chicken, boiling water, peeling off the feathers and dividing the chicken into parts. Frozen chicken gives you the opportunity to choose the chicken parts you feel like eating.

Frozen chicken business is so profitable that you can be making as much as a million naira monthly as a medium scale producer and retailer.

For the purpose of convenience, the demand for frozen chicken is on the increase. Anyone who invest in this business can never incur loss. This article will tell you what you need to know before starting your frozen chicken business. You will also be enlightened on how to market your frozen chicken. Meanwhile, let us learn more on some of the health benefits of frozen chicken.

Health Benefits of Eating Chicken

As we all know, chicken is a very good source of protein, likewise fish and other seafood. Protein builds our muscles, skin, cartilage and blood vessels.

Many consumers attest to the fact that chicken soup or stew is more delicious than those prepared with beef or other sources of protein.

Chicken prevents bone loss, because it is rich in calcium. It is not difficult to acquire the calcium because most chicken bones are very soft and they can be easily chewed. Chewing chicken bones  does not just give strong bones, it gives strong teeth too.

Chicken is rich in phosphorus that helps to aid strong teeth, bones, kidney as well as the liver.

Consuming higher rate of chicken increases our metabolic performance.

Eating more of chicken will keep blood vessels healthy thereby increasing your energy level.

Chicken is rich in vitamin-B that helps prevent cancer.

Chicken consumption improves healthy eyesight.

Consumption of chicken reduces skin problems, and it repairs dry and damaged skin.

Chicken increases appetite because it consists of zinc and this helps in maintaining a healthy appetite.

Having known the importance of chicken to the body, let us now emphasize on how it can be produced locally. In my previous article titled 6 reasons you should invest in frozen packaged chicken business, we discussed about the federal government placing a ban on the importation of frozen chicken to Nigeria.

Since there is ban on frozen chicken, it is better to produce it locally. The steps needed to start frozen chicken  production.

First, you need to understand the two basic sources to get life chicken to process into frozen chicken –
Rearing birds in your poultry farm, the type of birds for frozen chicken are either layers or broilers.
You can buy birds from poultry farmers.

A lot of people prefer not to go through the stress of preparing life chicken and so this makes them have preference for frozen chicken. There are some startup requirements needed to start this business.

Initial Capital To Start Frozen Chicken

To start frozen chicken as a medium scale investor, you will need a minimum of N2,000,000. Your initial capital will be invested in purchasing all equipment needed to run the business. Your source of finance can be loan from any bank, your personal savings, it could come from partners or any other source you can think of.

Startup Location

Your startup point might not necessarily be a shop, you can start this business from your home if you have the sufficient space. However if your home is not spacious enough, that means you will need to acquire or rent a shop either in a market, busy street or your neighborhood.

Frozen Chicken Equipment And Support Staff

There are some basic equipment needed to run this business. Having achieved a standard start up point, it is
important to purchase your working tools. These are as follows:

  • Deep freezers
  • Generator
  • Knives and Axes
  • Bowls and Basins
  • Sealing Machine
  • Automatic weighing scale
  • Lovely polythene bags for packaging
  • Tables for cutting
  • Chairs
  • Heat source (stove or heater)
  • Soap and Hand Towels

You will have to hire support staff to make your frozen chicken business more efficient. If You intent to produce the frozen food on your own, there should be different sections in your factory, the slaughtering and feather removal section, dividing section, packaging section and the distribution section. The sectioning depends on how large your production is. In hiring staff, make sure you hire dedicated staff and make sure you treat them right by paying their salary as at when due. This will make them always happy and more dedicated to their jobs.

There are two types of birds that can be used for frozen chicken, and these are broilers, and old layers. So if you want to buy your birds from a farm you know what type to source for, and if you are going to rear it on your own farm, you should take note of the type to invest on.

Getting Started

You have your equipment ready, you know what type of birds to source for, your space is available, the next step is starting the business. Interestingly,  once the birds have been slaughtered, all the parts are useful.

We have discussed about the production process of this business, let us go further to branding, and selling aspect. After your production, there are some steps to consider to make your products acceptable to the public and they are as follows.

Frozen chicken is a consumable product and so you must create a sweet name. It must be simple and short, easy to pronounce. The more appealing your name sounds, the better for your business.

Your Target Market

Where and how you intend to sell your production matters a lot, so locating a target  market is very important. Your target should basically be those shops that are involved in buying and selling of frozen foods, hotels, restaurants, institutions with catering facility, fast food owners, party planners/host. This will definitely help you increase your production process.

There is more to branding than just creating a unique name, it also involves creating unique image for your product. The image must describe your product and this simply means that your product must be meaningful. Your product name and image will automatically advertise your product if there is consistency. You can develop strategies on how you can advertise your product, or better still use the existing advertising media like online, or offline, advertisement.  Tell family, friends and neighbours about your product. Remember, advertising your product goes a long way in promoting your business.

Retail Selling

You can as well sell in retail, to achieve this means you need to have a shop, it could be in a residential environment or market environment where you know that people in that environment will not depend on their locally reared chicken before they can eat one. What we mean invariably is that you should locate a strategic area and a high profile one. Your shop must be easily accessible for your potential and existing customers to locate you.

Potential Profit

This business is a profitable one no doubt about that. Once you or your staff have gone through the process of washing and dividing into parts, chicken heads, necks, legs, laps, wings, chest, gizzard are sold separately,and the minimum amount a kilogram is sold is around N700, this price can  increase during festive period because the demand will be higher.

Invest in this business today and  realize the potential profit in it. Feel free to ask questions we will gladly respond. Also share your success story with us. Wish you all the best.

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