IZamgoat, founded by Paul Nyambe, is Zambia’s first dedicated and innovative commercial-scale aggregator, processor and supplier of goat meat and other related products, thereby also empowering rural communities, largely smallholder farmers.
Goat rearing is considered a “poor man’s trade”. Smallholder farmers don’t keep goats to generate income, they do it instead to provide for themselves and as a symbol of prestige. Yet the smallholder farmers struggle to pay school fees for their children and can hardly afford to go to the hospital.
Founded in July 2012 as a privately-held for-profit social enterprise, Zamgoat took charge on an integrated aggregation/processing and trading business model that endeavors to deliver sustainable social and economic value across their stakeholders, suppliers, shareholders and customers.
Despite the growing demand for goat products at the national, regional and global scale, goat processing and marketing has historically been traditional and informal. The key is to create an up-to-date supply chain for goat products.
As a mission-driven company, Zamgoat does not only therefore meet the growing demand for goat meat and related products in Zambia and the regional export markets, but also addresses the high poverty levels especially among smallholder farmers.
So far operating with limited capacities and lacking in ideal operational infrastructure including slaughterhouse, processing equipment and cold transport, we have over the last 3 years processed and sold over 2,300 goats, impacting more than 200 smallholder farmers, with a growing market reach and revenues. Their average annual sales amounted to the equivalent of over $50,000.
