Get to the meat in butchery business

Ben Amache was a rugby player, playing for the Strathmore University league. During his playing days, he and his teammates would go to Nairobi West after training sessions and games to hangout and eat pork.

It was as a result of this activity marred with failure to secure employment that he identified an opportunity to set up a pork business. It was fairly easy to start the business as his family reared pigs, but not for commercial purposes.

He identified his neighbourhood, Lang’ata, as the right place to set up Pork Tavern.

With a combination of his savings and capital investment from his siblings, he was able to set up shop. His unique value proposition was that you could not only buy pork, but also you would get ready made pork on request which sparked interest amongst his clientele over period.

His initial years in business, like most businesses was faced with many challenges that threatened closure of the business. At first, it was employees stealing from the business hence no profits leave alone meet its expenses.

To ensure that his growth trajectory is still on the rise, I linked Ben to Annhazel Njoki the proprietor of Texfarm butchery based in Greenhouse Ngong Road for some advice on the butchery business from her ten years’ experience in business. Here are some of her pointers.

Understand the client’s religious and cultural beliefs

Texfarm butchery is Halal certified to cater for its growing Muslim clientele.

It is also with the client in mind that Texfarm also does not stock pork. It is vital that a business is able to cater to its wide range of clientele so that it may not lose its market share to competitors

Track your value chain

The butchery business calls for the entrepreneur to fully be wary of its value chain from production to client consumption so as to ensure that quality is upheld through the value chain.

It is with this in mind that Njoki advices that as the entrepreneur in the butchery business to have one slaughter house in which you can track the meat movement after slaughter.

Train and empower your team

A business is as good as the employees within. It is therefore vital that the entrepreneur trains and empowers their team in order to ensure that they not only employees in the business but they also embrace ownership.