GrainCore Business Plan › Section 2 › Company Overview, Vision & Mission

2.1 Company Description

GrainCore Milling & Foods (Pty) Ltd will be incorporated as a
private company under the Companies Act, 2008. It is structured as a
vertically integrated staple-food manufacturer spanning grain
procurement, milling, fortification, packaging, branded consumer goods,
industrial supply, warehousing, and national distribution. The Company’s
operating philosophy is to control as much of the value chain as is
economically efficient — from the silo to the shelf — thereby capturing
margin at each stage, insulating itself from intermediary mark-ups, and
ensuring consistent product quality and food-safety compliance.

The business model is informed by the demonstrated success of Premier
FMCG, one of the largest milling and FMCG operators in Southern Africa,
whose integrated platform combines seven wheat mills, three maize mills,
fourteen warehouses, bakery integration, and multi-country operations
across South Africa, Mozambique, and Eswatini. GrainCore does not seek
to replicate Premier’s scale on day one; rather, it adopts the proven
structural logic of that model and applies it through a lean, modern,
single-flagship facility that can scale in disciplined phases.

2.2 Vision Statement

To become one of Africa’s leading vertically integrated
staple-food processing companies — recognised for affordability,
quality, and its contribution to food security.

2.3 Mission Statement

To provide affordable, high-quality staple food products while
strengthening African food security through efficient milling,
distribution, and agricultural value-chain development that creates
shared value for farmers, employees, consumers, and investors.

2.4 Core Strategic Objectives

1. Commission a 180,000 tonne/annum maize milling line and a 120,000
   tonne/annum wheat milling line within the first 24 months of financial
   close.
2. Achieve EBITDA-positive operations in Year 1 and full debt
   amortisation by the end of Year 5.
3. Capture a credible share of the formal and informal staple-food
   retail channels in Gauteng and surrounding provinces before expanding
   nationally.
4. Establish recognised consumer brands in super and special maize
   meal, samp, and the full wheat-flour range.
5. Build a regional export capability into SADC markets (notably
   Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique, and Eswatini) by Year
   3–4.
6. Operate to international food-safety standards (FSSC 22000,
   HACCP, ISO 22000) from first production.

2.5 Legal, Ownership & Governance Structure

The Company will be majority-owned by its founding promoters and
management, with a meaningful minority allocation reserved for an
institutional or private-equity investor and a broad-based black
economic empowerment (B-BBEE) shareholding vehicle. A professional,
independent-majority board will be constituted at financial close, with
sub-committees for Audit & Risk, Operations & Safety, and Social
& Ethics. This governance architecture is a prerequisite for the
development-finance and institutional capital the Company intends to
raise.

Table 2.1 — Indicative post-money ownership structure (subject to
final negotiation).

2.6 Management Team & Organisational Capability

Milling is an operationally intensive, margin-sensitive business in
which execution capability is the single greatest determinant of
success. The Company will be led by an executive team combining deep
milling and FMCG operating experience with commercial, financial, and
agricultural-trading expertise. The Plan budgets for a fully
professionalised management structure from commissioning, rather than
the owner-operator model typical of smaller mills, because lender and
institutional-investor due diligence requires demonstrable depth and
succession across every critical function.

The core executive functions to be filled at or before financial
close are set out below. Remuneration is benchmarked to the South
African food-manufacturing sector and is fully provided for within the
operating-cost model.

Table 2.2 — Core executive functions and required
competencies.

Below the executive layer, the Company will operate a conventional
manufacturing organisation comprising milling-shift teams (three shifts
for continuous operation), engineering and maintenance, quality and
laboratory, warehousing and logistics, finance and administration, and
sales and distribution. At full Phase 1 ramp the business is expected to
employ approximately 320 direct staff, with a deliberate emphasis on
in-house artisan and miller training to address the well-documented
scarcity of qualified millers in South Africa. A formal
skills-development pipeline, partly funded through the FoodBev SETA,
forms part of both the operational plan and the social-licence and
B-BBEE commitments described in Section 13.

The Company will appoint an independent non-executive chairperson and
a board with a majority of independent directors at financial close.
Board sub-committees — Audit & Risk, Operations & Safety, and
Social & Ethics — will meet quarterly, and the Company will adopt
the King IV governance code as its reporting baseline, consistent with
the expectations of development-finance institutions and prospective
institutional shareholders.

Confidential — this business plan is provided to prospective investors and lenders for evaluation purposes only and may not be reproduced or distributed without the written consent of GrainCore Milling & Foods (Pty) Ltd.