Established in 2011 and with 13 employees (six full-time), Viphya Chambo is a Mzuzu-based company that produces and buys fresh fish from smallholder farmers in offtaking locations in Rumphi, Mzimba and Nkhatabay. The company also sells fresh Chambo fish in Mzuzu City at designated outlets. In addition to the fresh tilapia, Viphya Chambo also sells bananas and sugarcane and plans to sell pine trees in the near future. Falesi Mwangonde is the Managing Director who ventured into aquaculture in 2013 upon retiring as a Human Resources Manager in the Civil Service Commission. Odoi Mwangonde, Operations Director, is a retired journalist who trained in best aquaculture production/management practices with various practitioners in China, India, Mozambique and  Zambia.

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Facilitate Investment into the Sector by Emerging SMEs via Piloting Fish Aggregation and Offtake Arrangements as an Investable Model

Completed in June 2023, through this 18-month project, Viphya Chambo partnered with CASA to pilot an aggregation and offtake model in several districts in northern Malawi (Viphya’s location). The project helped Viphya Chambo meet the demand for fresh fish in Mzuzu City by offtaking fish from farmers, while at the same time providing smallholders with access to an easy and lucrative market (Viphya Chambo). CASA aims to enable smallholders who have been excluded from the aquaculture value chain by larger players to be included. At a total cost of £78,506 in technical assistance and a grant (including a Covid-19 support package), CASA also helped Viphya Chambo become investment-ready by obtaining all the necessary documentation required by investors.

Viphya Chambo pivoted its business model from exclusively producing table-sized fish at its farm to serve its market to managing an out-grower scheme of over 1,500 smallholder farmers who produced the table-sized fish, and then marketing this fish. With this shift, the company produced fingerlings for the smallholder fish farmers to grow. Viphya Chambo had a unique position to supply more inputs to the smallholder farmers in their out-grower and offtaking scheme and beyond.

To exploit this opportunity, the company needed investment in a medium-sized feed mill and an indoor fish hatchery to produce more inputs for sale to smallholder farmers, and a freezer van to use for collecting and marketing table-sized fish grown by these smallholder farmers. Viphya Chambo sought debt investment of £180,000 to procure and install a feed mill, and construct an indoor hatchery.

Updated: December 2024