NCG is a private company legally registered in 2019 and now has seven full-time and seven part-time employees. NCG established a hatchery that has increased their potential production capacity from 25,000 day-old chicks (DOC) four years ago, when they started operations, to 115,000 DOC per month. NCG has a parent stock that is renewed every 18 months, providing eggs for hatching, and it also supplies DOCs to farmers. The DOCs are sold across Rwanda, primarily in Kigali and Rubavu, which accounts for 50-70% of its business, while the rest are sold in neighbouring countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi.

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Supporting Standardisation and Packaging of Portioned Chicken for the Local Market

The partnership with CASA demonstrated to other businesses that the model of partnering with farmers is profitable and sustainable, highlighting the need to have modern slaughterhouses. 

The company’s long-term vision is to provide quality standardised products to the domestic market. CASA agreed to support NCG to establish an out-grower and output contract farming model to enable NCG to source sufficient birds from smallholder out-grower farmers to supply the proposed slaughterhouse to sell well-packaged, standardised and certified chicken meat and engage end markets such as hotels, restaurants and butcheries. This would ultimately allow them to compete against imported chicken meat.

With a total project budget of £143,320, CASA’s planned contribution of £59,150 included a grant of £27,480 to buy the slaughterhouse equipment and technical assistance worth £31,670 to support NCG in fiduciary capacity building, investment readiness, development of a contract farming model and setting up the slaughterhouse for processing/dressing. However, the partnership (February 2024 – April 2025) ended prematurely due to shifting priorities and budget cuts, although CASA provided the technical assistance for investment readiness and business planning and NCG was able to secure a commercial investment of £34,772. Priorities changed after NCG realised that they would need to significantly expand their production of DOCs with new parental stock for increased sales of DOC and corresponding increased smallholder production to justify the investment in the slaughterhouse; so these plans were deferred to a future date. NCG had initially identified 1,200 farmers grouped into six cooperatives (50% of them women) as potential out-growers, but after the change in priorities they, and many other smallholders, are currently benefitting only from access to newly introduced “Tetra” breeds of chicken that are more suited to smallholder extensive production systems and more adaptable and resilient.

NCG used the initial debt investments to install a solar system and expand their parental stock and still seek further investment for a slaughterhouse/processing facility in future.

Updated: March 2026