A 100% BASOTHO-owned business called Mon-Foods, which runs a poultry farm and an abattoir, with the capacity to produce 12 000 birds a week, was officially launched in Maseru on Friday.

Speaking at the launch, the director of Mon-Foods Thabo Monyamane said they actually started operations six weeks ago, although they have not yet reached the farm’s full capacity.

He was, however, quick to pledge that enough chicken would definitely be available every week for their customers in due time.

Mr Monyamane said they started operating as soon as they were able to cross the border to South Africa in order to purchase the chicks.

“We are currently in the process of finalising our hatchery and hopefully by December, we will be hatching our own chicks on the farm, to reduce the dependency on the South African manufacturers,” he said.

For his part, the co-farm manager Maseli Leche said there are 15 chicken sheds on the farm with the biggest about 15metres by 50 metres, housing a total of 2 250 chickens.

He said the plan is to produce 12 000 chickens on a weekly basis.

“We, however, have some serious challenges of meeting the high demand of chickens, our supply is less than the demand,” Mr Leche also showed.

He added: “We currently have not yet reached the farm’s maximum capacity and we use the Makhulo Chicken Feed, which is produced locally to ensure that we make use of available resources in the country and to answer the micro economic variables like the unemployment rate.”