Lichtenburg Nut Company Business Plan — Operating Model

Intake, roasting, grinding, filling and warehousing, and the throughput discipline behind 3,000 tonnes a year.

Section 13 of 37

Operating Model

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12.1 Process flow

Table 31. Process flow and critical control points

Step	Operation	Equipment	Critical control	Capacity
1	Intake and sampling	Weighbridge, probe sampler, moisture meter	Moisture below 8%; visual and rapid aflatoxin screen before offloading	40 t per day in season
2	Drying and storage	Aerated silos with ambient and heated air	Moisture held below 7.5%; temperature monitoring	1,400 t static, four months of cover
3	Shelling and grading	Sheller, destoner, gravity table, size grader	70% kernel recovery; shells diverted to the biomass hopper	1.4 t/hour in shell
4	Colour sorting	Optical colour sorter with infrared channel	Discoloured and shrivelled kernels rejected; the primary aflatoxin control	1.0 t/hour kernel
5	Blanching	Continuous dry blancher	Skin removal; secondary visual defect removal	1.0 t/hour
6	Roasting	Continuous dual-fuel roaster, LPG and shell biomass	Roast colour to specification; time and temperature recorded per batch	1.0 t/hour
7	Milling	Two-stage mill with in-line cooling	Particle size to customer specification	1.0 t/hour
8	Homogenising and de-aeration	Homogeniser, vacuum de-aerator, stabiliser dosing	Oil separation control; texture consistency	1.0 t/hour
9	Chilling and crystallisation	Scraped-surface chiller and holding tanks	Crystallisation profile; product temperature at fill	1.0 t/hour
10	Filling and packing	Retail filler, capper, labeller, coder, case packer; separate pail, drum and IBC station	Fill weight; seal integrity; batch coding	Retail 80 units/min; bulk 6 pails/min
11	Quality release	In-house HPLC and ELISA laboratory	Aflatoxin, moisture, particle size, microbiology; positive release before despatch	Batch-level
12	Warehousing and despatch	Racked ambient warehouse; WMS with lot traceability	First-expiry-first-out; lot recall capability within four hours	900 pallet positions

12.2 Utilities and infrastructure resilience

Ditsobotla Local Municipality has a documented record of electricity and water supply interruption. The plan treats this as an engineering requirement rather than a risk to be disclosed and ignored. R9.4 million of the Phase 1 budget is allocated to utilities, including a 250 kWp rooftop solar photovoltaic installation, standby generation sized to carry the chilling and laboratory loads, and on-site potable and process water storage of 48 hours. The roaster is dual-fuel, running on LPG with shell biomass as a partial substitute, which reduces both cost and exposure to a single energy source.

12.3 Headcount and organisation

Table 32. Headcount and payroll build

Function	FY2029	FY2030	FY2031	FY2032	FY2033	Notes
Executive and management	6	6	7	7	8	Managing director, finance director, operations manager, quality manager, commercial manager, supply chain manager
Supervisory, technical and professional	10	13	15	17	19	Production supervisors, quality technicians, maintenance artisans, accountants, account managers
Operators, warehouse and general	28	34	40	46	50	Two shifts plus intake and warehouse; seasonal contract labour during the intake window

Total direct employees	44	53	62	70	77
Total payroll cost	14	17	21	24	28	R’000, fully loaded including statutory contributions
Output per employee (tonnes)	26.8	34.7	37.7	39.0	39.0	A useful productivity benchmark for a plant of this scale
Net revenue per employee (R million)	1,461	2,035	2,392	2,630	2,777