The Management of Food Concept and Entertainment Limited, owners and operators of the Chicken Republic restaurants has entered into a joint venture arrangement with some foreign companies that culminate in the establishment of a chicken procession plant in the country before the end of this year.
Mr. Deji Akinyanju, Managing Director of the company made this known in an inter view with THISDAY in Lagos. He disclosed that the plant with anticipated capacity ranging between 30,000 to 40,000 birds per week is likely to be located around Ota, Ogun State.
Fielding questions on how the company intends meeting its supply needs when it finally increases its outlet across to about 3,000 in the next years, he said the company's is aware of the difficulties that may arise in the area of supply of chicken for its recipe .He therefore allayed the fears of customers and investors in the company over a possible short supply of its necessary raw materials, saying that the company has entered into a joint venture that would ensure that chicken are being processed locally to meet the demands of the local market.
"What is happening now is that we have a few chicken processing plants and sometimes during festive periods, we run out of stock. If we are growing at a similar pace even as new entrants are coming in, surely this is going to affect supply.
We are at various stages of discussions with chicken processing plants in Holland and Zimbabwe to partner with us to set up a chicken processing plant in Nigeria. We have a site secured in Otta, Ogun State and we will be partnering with strategic partners in setting up chicken processing plants tht would be producing up to 30,000 to 40,000 birds per week," he disclosed.
The seven years old Food Concepts trades under four major brands including a fast food restaurant franchise (Chicken Republic ), Pizza franchise (St. Elmos'), Bakery franchise (Butterfield) and an upscale , fine dinning restaurant (Reeds Thai Restaurant). |
