Karoo Rabbit Protein Business Plan › Section 1 › Executive Summary

Karoo Rabbit Protein (Pty) Ltd (“KRP”) is a development-stage company
established to build South Africa’s first vertically integrated,
commercially scaled rabbit-protein platform. The Company will own and
operate the high-value, defensible nodes of the value chain — genetics,
a central feed mill, a HACCP-accredited abattoir and value-added
processing, and a national cold chain — while devolving live-animal
production to a managed network of contract growers. This asset-light
farming model concentrates capital where it earns the highest return and
builds biosecurity-controlled supply at a pace that owned-and-operated
farming could not match.

Rabbit is one of the most resource-efficient terrestrial proteins
available. It converts feed to meat at a ratio of roughly 2.5–3.5 to
one, reaches slaughter weight of approximately 2.2–2.5 kg in 11–12
weeks, and yields lean, low-cholesterol, high-protein white meat. South
Africa is presently free of the two diseases — myxomatosis and rabbit
haemorrhagic disease — that constrain production across much of Europe,
which is both a biosecurity advantage and a latent export credential.
Yet the domestic industry remains niche, fragmented and structurally
under-served: there is no scaled off-taker, abattoir capacity is scarce,
and producers have repeatedly been stranded by the absence of a reliable
formal market channel.

KRP is designed precisely to remove those structural bottlenecks. By
guaranteeing offtake to contract growers, controlling slaughter and
processing, and building branded demand under the premium KarooLean™ and
everyday Pure Protein labels, the Company converts a fragmented cottage
activity into an investable, traceable, food-safe supply chain. The
timing is favourable: successive biosecurity shocks in competing
proteins — highly pathogenic avian influenza in poultry (2024) and a
wide foot-and-mouth outbreak in cattle (2025) — have exposed the
concentration risk in South Africa’s protein basket and created an
opening for a disease-free alternative.

1.1 The Opportunity

South Africans consume approximately 65–69 kg of meat per capita each
year, among the highest rates on the continent, but the basket is
heavily concentrated in poultry (around 60% of consumption) and red
meat. Affordability pressure is intensifying — the share of lower-income
households has risen materially since 2020 — which favours efficient,
feed-thrifty proteins. Globally the rabbit-meat market is valued at
roughly US$3.8–4.5 billion, with China accounting for close to half of
production and Europe for about 30% of value. Premium markets command
farm-gate values well above commodity proteins. The domestic gap —
negligible formal supply against a large, protein-hungry and
increasingly price-sensitive market — is the core of the KRP thesis.

1.2 Financial Highlights

The five-year base case projects revenue growing from R42.8 million
in FY2027 to R428.4 million in FY2031, with the business turning
EBITDA-positive in Year 3 and net-profit-positive in Year 4. The
trajectory reflects a deliberate ramp: capacity, the grower network and
the value-added and export mix are all built progressively rather than
assumed from day one.

Figure 1

The project generates an indicative project-level internal rate of
return of approximately 17.4%, a net present value of
about R26.5 million at a 15% discount rate, and an implied enterprise
value of roughly R527.9 million on a 7.0× exit multiple of Year-5
EBITDA. Returns are sensitive to selling price above all other
variables, as the sensitivity analysis in Section 13 sets out.

1.3 The Ask

KRP is seeking R245 million in blended capital to fund the build-out
of the integrated platform and to carry the business through to
self-funding cash generation:

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 Karoo Rabbit Protein (Pty) Ltd.