Company Profile Zambika Bakery Ltd

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Zambika Bakery Limited (Zambika) is a family-owned business that bakes and distributes bread and confectionery in Southern, Lusaka and Central provinces. Founded in 1999, the company is one of 3 businesses owned by the Pandor family. Kafue Wholesalers and Distributors Ltd produces raw materials for baking which it supplies to its sister  companies Zambake and Zambika. Zambake operates a big automated facility in Lusaka which produces around 20,000 units of confectionery and baked goods a day, employing around 100 people.

Zambika has a broad customer base, supplying a range of supermarkets in addition to hundreds of wholesale and smaller retail outlets. The company services 9 delivery routes every day / other ays with its own fleet of trucks (whilst Zambake services another 21 routes). In an effort to diversify, Zambika has also opened a retail outlet in Kafue where it serves coffee and higher value fast food items alongside its core offering of baked goods.

Project Description

With support from EZCF, Zambika proposes to;

1. Establish a fish farm and hatchery and to operate an out-grower program with smallholder fish farmers in the Kafue area. This is essentially a new business venture for the company – an entirely new value chain.
2. Sensitize, recruit and train 1,000 smallholder farmers over the course of 2.5 years, providing them with extension support, access to inputs, and guaranteed offtake.
3. Partner with Gailsea Innovation Ltd (Gailsea) to deliver the project. Gailsea was founded in 2020 to provide aquaculture advisory services and has worked with an estimated 600 small and medium-sized farmers to date.

Marketing, impact on people and the environment;

Zambika cites high-level demand figures for fish in Zambia and proposes to start operating in this new value chain on the strength of that demand. On a more local level, there is tangible demand for fish in the Kafue area. The company believes there is a good opportunity in setting up a local outlet to meet this demand. Zambika also intends to market tilapia through its existing bread retailing network and to the hospitality industry.

Through the proposed project the company plans to establish a new aquaculture supply chain and integrate 1,000 smallholder fish farmers of whom 40% will be women and 25% youth.

Zambika will work with farmers in the Kafue basin in areas with clay soils that have good water retention capacity. This will avoid the use of pond liners and also enhance water utilisation efficiency. Farmers will be trained to use manure in fish ponds to promote the growth of zoo and phytoplankton for fish feed.  Farmers will also be trained in use of waste water for irrigating horticulture crops.  Zambika has taken some steps which have improved its environmental impact. It has acquired diesel ovens that consume less diesel than generators during power outages. It is also transitioning to solar for outdoor lighting and purchasing more fuel-efficient trucks.