By Larry Claasen
WHEN Richard Manzini took over what was then known as Daybreak Farms at the beginning of 2024 , he took charge of a troubled organisation.
The chicken producer, which has changed its name to Daybreak Foods, had to deal with the multimillion-rand irregularities prior to his appointment. The end result is that new appointments were made to its board and Manzini was made CEO.
South Africa is the biggest producer of chicken in Africa, producing close to 2-million tons of chicken a year. Daybreak holds approximately 7% of the South African chicken market, and steady growth is expected.
Though Manzini has only been in charge for a few months, he has been quick to usher in the changes at the group, which was bought out of Afgri by the government pension fund, the Public Investment Corporation (PIC) in 2015.
One of his key goals was to institute better governance controls at Daybreak.
“It was bought out of Afgri, but it was never really allowed to corporatise itself. We put in a lot of policies and standard operating procedures across the business, which were not there, or partly there, and not followed through.”
This in effect also meant people were held to account for their actions.
“This was the start of a cultural change management process.”
Manzini says people started to understand that things were going to be done the correct way, resulting in decisions being made a lot quicker.
“If you can’t make a decision in 30 minutes, if something is wrong, it gets escalated to the CEO’s office.”
Manzini is confident about the path Daybreak Foods is on, despite the outbreak of bird flu and rising feed prices knocking the sector.
“The business has legs, it just has to be given the chance to run. We are slowly running the marathon now, and we will start sprinting in a couple of months.”
Apart from better governance, Manzini also plans to improve Daybreak Foods’ environmental performance, by investing in a water treatment facility.
“We use a lot of water and draining it, and not actually replenishing it.”
A changing market
Aside from corporatising Daybreak Foods and dealing with bird flu and rising feed prices, Manzini is also adjusting the group to a changing market.
Daybreak Foods is best known for selling its 5kg mixed bag of frozen chicken pieces. This also means its abattoir facilities are designed around delivering this product.
The market, however, has shifted. People increasingly want ready to cook packs like chicken strips and deboned meat.
“We need to capture that market growth. Townships now have convenience stores, which means the old ladies don’t have to plan for that one trip into town. And that’s why they are buying fresh products.”
Loads shedding is also playing a part in the market shift as the inconsistent power supply means chicken cannot be frozen for long, resulting in people wanting smaller and fresh packs of meat.
The problem for Daybreak Foods is that its abattoirs are largely designed for frozen products and not for fresh meat.
“The fresh meat market has grown by 52%, but we have only grown our revenue and volumes by 6%. So I’m missing out on all that growth.”
To adapt to this changing market, is looking to raise capital to invest in abattoir facilities that can produce more fresh meat.
“We need about 18 months to sort out the balance sheet, starting with raising the R250-million in loans,” says Manzini.
