Thaba Goats Business Plan — Route to Market

Live sales channels, buyer relationships, pricing by animal class and the blended R3,292 per goat achieved by Year 5.

Route to Market

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Route to market at Year 5
Figure 11. Route to market at Year 5.

Channel

Share of Year 5 sales

Indicative price

Character

Direct to community and ceremony

38%

Highest in the book

Households buying a live goat for a wedding, funeral or ceremony; the relationship compounds

Traders and speculators

34%

Middle

The volume channel for Boer goats; pays less but takes everything, every time

Breeding stock sales

16%

Highest per animal

Proven young does and bucks to other emerging farmers; from Year 4

Auction

8%

Variable

Auctions have lessened in importance in the production areas; used opportunistically

Abattoir

4%

Lowest

Roughly 59 cents in the rand against the informal channel; used only for culls

The blended price rises from R2 398 to R3 292 across the plan, 37.3 per cent over five years, or roughly 8.2 per cent a year. Approximately half of that is price escalation and half is mix: the shift toward direct community sales and breeding stock, and away from the auction and abattoir channels used in the early years when the farm has no relationships and no reputation.

12.1 Building each channel

  • Direct community sales are built one funeral at a time. There is no marketing campaign for this channel. A household that buys a healthy animal at a fair price for one ceremony returns for the next, and tells others. Two years of that compounds into a book.
  • Traders are the floor, not the ceiling. At least two trader relationships is a Gate 1 condition. They pay less than direct sales, which is precisely why they should never take the whole crop, but they take everything at short notice, which is what makes them the answer to a drought or a cash squeeze.
  • Breeding stock sales require records, not marketing. A young doe with a documented dam, recorded kidding history and a health record sells for materially more than the same animal without papers. This channel is worth 16 per cent of Year 5 volume at the highest price in the book and it is available only to a farm that has been recording since Stage 1.
  • Sell into the peaks. December, September, June and April carry the ceremonial demand. A farm with enough working capital to hold through February is a farm that captures a near two-to-one price spread on animals it was going to sell anyway.
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