Chicken is South Africa’s dominant and most affordable animal protein — it commands the largest share of meat consumption and per-capita demand continues to grow — yet the market remains heavily import-exposed and short of modern, vertically-integrated processing capacity. CluckCore captures this with an integrated poultry abattoir, processing and cold-chain value chain anchored in the Gauteng–North West corridor, modelled on the Grandchicks benchmark and supported by a contract-farming programme that secures bird supply while extending development impact. An R1.25-billion raise (R500 million of equity and R750 million of senior, IDC term and working-capital debt) funds the abattoir build and throughput ramp — scaling from 25,000 to 400,000 birds per week and roughly 33,000 dressed tonnes by FY2031 — delivering a headline equity money multiple of 15.4× and a 73% implied IRR, which normalise to a still-attractive 6.5× and 45% once the plan’s deliberately aggressive assumptions are stress-tested. As the plan states up front, funders should read these returns against the honest, dependency-explicit basis set out in the financial plan.