Lichtenburg Nut Company Business Plan — Products and Services

The product range across own brand, private label and industrial bulk, and the specification behind each.

Section 6 of 37

Products and Services

Jump to section

5.1 Product portfolio

Table 14. Product portfolio, specification and unit economics

Product	Formats	Specification	List price (Yr 1 real)	Gross contribution
Private label smooth and crunchy peanut butter	400 g, 800 g and 1 kg PET jars	92% peanut minimum; aflatoxin below 10 ppb with an internal action limit of 6 ppb	R58.00/kg	R21.29/kg (37.7%)
Tsala mainstream smooth and crunchy	400 g and 800 g PET jars	92% peanut; salt and stabiliser; South African groundnuts only	R76.00/kg (blended with premium tier)	R31.16/kg (46.1%)
Tsala Pure natural peanut butter	375 g and 750 g glass jars	100% South African groundnuts; no added oil, sugar, salt or stabiliser	Premium tier within the own-brand blend	Included above
Certified bulk peanut paste	20 kg pails, 200 kg drums, 1,000 kg IBCs	Milled to customer particle-size specification; certificate of analysis per batch	R52.00/kg	R20.56/kg (40.1%)
Roasted and salted snack peanuts	50 g, 100 g, 200 g and 450 g flexible packs	Blanched, roasted, seasoned; colour sorted	R95.00/kg	R40.68/kg (48.7%)
Off-grade kernels and shell biomass	Bulk	Sold to the crushing, feed and biomass markets; not for human consumption	By-product	R1.15/kg credit

Gross contribution is net realised price after trade discounts less all variable cost. Percentages are contribution as a share of net realised price.

5.2 Portfolio logic

The portfolio is constructed so that each product solves a different problem for the business, not just for the customer. Private label absorbs fixed cost. Bulk paste requires no filling line capacity beyond a pail station and can be sold in full loads with 45-day terms rather than 62. Own brand carries margin and, critically, carries the equity value at exit, a contract manufacturer without a brand is worth a lower multiple than one with a consumer franchise. Snack nuts monetise roaster hours that the peanut butter lines leave idle, which is why their contribution per kilogram is so high.

Figure 1. Volume reaches 3,000 tonnes by Year 5 against a 3,400-tonne nameplate

5.3 Capacity and scalability

Table 15. Capacity by investment phase

Parameter	Phase 1 (Year 1)	Phase 2 (Year 3)	Phase 3 (Year 6)
Line rate	1,000 kg/hour finished paste	Unchanged	1,400 kg/hour
Shift pattern	Two shifts, eight productive hours each	Unchanged	Unchanged
Production days	250 per year	250	250
Availability assumption	85%	85%	85%
Nameplate capacity	3,400 t	3,400 t plus snack nut line	4,800 t
Capital cost	R105.0m	R17.3m	R31.3m
Capacity utilisation at year end	35%	69%	94%

Phase 2 adds the snack nut roasting and packing line and incremental storage rather than peanut butter capacity. Phase 3 de-bottlenecks the roasting and milling train and is funded by a committed expansion debt tranche drawn in month 74.

Capacity utilisation reaches 89% by Year 5 and would reach 94% in Year 6 without the Phase 3 investment. The plan therefore commits to de-bottlenecking in Year 6 rather than building excess capacity at the outset. This is a deliberate capital discipline choice: idle capacity in Years 1 to 3 is the single most damaging thing a greenfield food plant can carry, because depreciation and maintenance accrue whether the line runs or not.