We can’t all be farmers in order to trade in pigs or pork. We already have a thriving community of piggeries throughout the country…producing slaughter pigs and weaner piglets weekly.
There is a massive gap of sourcing live pigs directly from piggeries for processing. Processing comes in different formats…such as slaughter and slicing pork carcasses into portions for reselling. Or wholesaling, where you slaughter, cut into portions and package into small portions to supply resellers.
Become A Pigs Broker
You can buy pigs directly from pig farmers and resell them at a markup. The scope is wide open on what you prefer to focus on:
1. Breeding stock – here you would be buying pigs to be used at running a pig farm. You’ll need to buy good genetic stock that includes weaners, gilts, sows and boars. You’ll be selling such pigs to pig farmers wanting to start a pig farm or existing pig farms.
2. Weaner piglets – As you can see on the website, weaner piglets are in abundance, so you would source this stock to supply farmers in the business of fattening weaners.
3. Slaughter pigs – You could focus on slaughter pigs…these are pigs ready to be slaughtered at 60kg and above.
Run A Butchery
Butcheries are in the business of processing meat and selling to the public. Many existing butcheries don’t own farms but source their stock directly from livestock farmers and abattoirs. If you opt to source your live pigs directly from piggeries, you’ll be saving a lot of money compared to buying pork carcass from the abattoir.
You’ll still be required to use the services of a registered abattoir to slaughter your live pigs. This is non-negotiable in South Africa if you intend selling meat to the public. Abattoirs will slaughter, inspect and grade your carcass. This route is cheaper since you only pay slaughter fees.
If you opt to source your pork carcass from the abattoir, you’ll pay for a marked-up pork carcass. This is because the abattoir owns this carcass and has already worked on it to be ready for you to buy.
Wholesale Pork
Here you can buy live pigs directly from pig farms or pork carcass from the abattoir.
You then get the carcass sliced into a variety of portions and packaged accordingly. You then bulk supply these pork packs to resellers such as spaza shops, who’ll then add their markup to make a profit.
Packs can range in size from 500g, 1kg etc…
Fast Foods & Restaurants
Preparing cooked pork is one option that is not fully exploited as yet. Until we have pork based fast food brands just like chicken and beef…there is still virgin land waiting to be explored.
We don’t have pork brands like Chicken Licken, KFC, Nandos etc. Why don’t we have pork burgers, sandwiches etc?
