Sizing the opportunity: a small share of a large market

The purpose of market sizing here is not to impress with a large headline number, but to demonstrate that the plant can be filled by capturing only a modest share of demand that lies within economic delivery range of Potchefstroom. We size the market top-down and reconcile it bottom-up.

Top-down

Bottom-up cross-check

The same volume can be reconstructed from customer counts. A single mid-sized broiler operation can consume 2,000–4,000 tonnes of feed a year; a commercial feedlot several thousand tonnes; a dairy several hundred to a few thousand. NWAF’s Year 5 target of ~26,300 tonnes is equivalent to, for example, a handful of anchor poultry and feedlot accounts plus a distributor network serving many smaller farmers, a customer base of a few dozen meaningful accounts, not hundreds. This is a credible commercial task for a well-run regional mill with technical selling.

Demand drivers and dynamics

• Protein consumption growth — rising domestic demand for chicken, eggs, milk and red meat pulls through feed demand structurally.
• Emerging commercial farmers — a growing, under-served segment expanding the addressable base and aligned with development-finance mandates.
• Feed-economics cycle — the 2026 easing in maize and soybean prices improves livestock margins and encourages purchased-feed use over constrained self-mixing.
• Regional logistics economics — feed is heavy and low-value-density; proximity to customers is a durable cost advantage that favours a well-sited regional mill.
• Seasonality — demand varies with cropping and livestock cycles; the model assumes a modest seasonal pattern managed through inventory and production planning.

Customer segments