The poultry business that Jeanne Groenewald built
WITH A STRING of accolades to her name, including National Female Farmer of the year in 2006, Top Commercial Female Entrepreneur awards in 2014 and the Western Cape Premier’s Female Entrepreneur of 2014, Jeanne Groenewald rules the roost among free-range chicken producers.
As the founder and managing director of Elgin Free Range Chickens (EFRC), Groenewald has grown her chicken operation in Grabouw, in the Elgin Valley, from just 100 chickens in the yard, to supplying more than 100000 chickens a week to the country’s biggest retailers, farm stalls and restaurants.
Groenewald didn’t set out to become a chicken farmer, “it just happened”, she says.
Armed with a BSC in agriculture in animal physiology and genetics from the University of Stellenbosch in 1992, she says farming might be in her blood, but she hadn’t banked on the poultry business.
After graduating, her first job was working on her father’s duck farm in Wellington, where she gained experience in breeding, hatching and rearing poultry naturally, with no routine antibiotics. She also built an abattoir on the farm and helped grow their duck product line.
Nutritious Four years later, she started raising her chickens for personal reasons.
For Groenewald, producing truly freerange chickens was an ethical issue and a passion. “I wanted to feed my family nutritious fowl that was truly free-range and free of antibiotics or growth promoters. I’m passionate about treating animals in a humane way, and am really concerned about what we feed our families. The combination of the two is what got me started.”
Word got around, and when her friends and family tasted her plump, healthy chickens and learnt more about them, they asked her to supply them.
Business developed organically. By 2000, she needed to build a state-of-the-art abattoir in Grabouw to feed demand.
Twenty-one years on, EFRC employs more than 500 people directly and about 150 indirectly, in a community with high unemployment and substance abuse rates.
They’ve built a night school on the farm to help staff further their education, and work with local authorities on various community upliftment projects, which are another passion.
EFRC is now supplying chicken to Woolworths, Spar, Checkers, delis and restaurants. They also hatch their own chicks to secure own supply and guarantee production, taking a long-term view: “The business has really grown by demand, which has been amazing.
“What I am the proudest about is that with the increase in production we have not lost any of the animal welfare or ethics that we started with. Often when small businesses up-scale, so much is lost.”
Consumer trust is fragile, which is why Groenewald has dedicated herself to building confidence in the quality of her brand, so customers know her product is truly free-range and ethically treated. It’s about knowing the farmer and the source. Not simply attaching “free-range” labels to a product in the hopes of duping buyers.
EFRC has stringent quality control and food safety measures in place to ensure stress-free, tasty chicken that’s free of routine antibiotics, animal by-products, fish meal and growth promoters.
“Sadly, as the industry is not regulated, there are so many unethical players in the market that cause damage. I encourage consumers to research where their food is coming from and ensure they purchase from a supplier they can trust.”
They’re halaal-certified and approved by Woolworths’ independent free-range auditors, LTL Auditors.
Antibiotics are sometimes necessary, she admits: “It’s our moral obligation to therapeutically treat unwell chickens. When a chicken falls ill, we work very closely with our avian veterinarian. “Medication is administered through water supply, with firm adherence to withdrawal periods.”
Farming is not easy, she says, which is why you need the passion to make it a success. “It’s hard work and is a 24/7 job that never stops. I love it and feel that women are naturally nurturers, which is what farming really is. We’re nurturing livestock, crops, etc.”
But in the “madness” of running a business which is growing every year, she says you sometimes don’t sit back and see all that it has become.
“Life is tough, juggling motherhood and business as a woman; and we women often live in guilt: either of not being a good