Zambeef Products Plc

What does Zambeef Products own?

The group owns an integrated food business spanning cattle ranching, feedlots, poultry (Zam Chick, Zamhatch), pork (Masterpork), the Kalundu dairy, Novatek stockfeed mills, large-scale cropping, a tannery, and about 236 retail outlets in Zambia, Nigeria, and Ghana.

Is Zambeef publicly traded?

Yes. Shares trade on the Lusaka Securities Exchange under the code ZAMBEEF and on London's AIM market under the ticker ZAM.

Who founded Zambeef?

Carl Irwin and Francis Grogan incorporated the company in June 1994, starting as a small Lusaka butchery before winning the Shoprite in-store butchery concession in 1995.

Where is Zambeef headquartered?

The registered office is at Plot 4970, Manda Road, Industrial Area, Lusaka, Zambia.

Who owns Zambeef?

Zambeef is a public company owned by its shareholders, including Zambian investors and international institutions. British International Investment has been a long-standing institutional shareholder, and management is led by CEO Faith Mukutu under chairman Patrick Wanjelani.

What was Zambeef's revenue in 2025?

For the fiscal year ended September 30, 2025, the group reported revenue of ZMW 8.06 billion, approximately $302.6 million, with operating profit of about $24 million and net income around $8.5 million.

Carl Irwin and Francis Grogan incorporated Zambeef Products Ltd in June 1994, starting with a small butchery business in Lusaka. The decisive early contract arrived in 1995, when the company won the concession to operate the butcheries inside every Shoprite store in Zambia, a deal that put its products in front of shoppers nationwide while the chain was still young.

The founders spent the following two decades building vertical integration. They added abattoirs and cattle feedlots, launched poultry production under Zam Chick and the Zamhatch hatchery, created Masterpork for pig production, established the Kalundu dairy, and built Novatek into Zambia's leading stockfeed producer with two mills and capacity of 360,000 tons per year. Large-scale cropping of maize, soybeans, and wheat on company farms fed the mills and the herd.

The company listed on the Lusaka Securities Exchange, becoming one of the market's largest listed businesses, and later added a secondary listing on London's AIM market under the ticker ZAM. That international listing brought development finance and institutional capital, including investment from the UK development finance institution now called British International Investment.

Founding-era control gradually gave way to professional management and a broad shareholder base. Faith Mukutu, a chartered accountant who previously held senior finance positions at Zambia Sugar and Zambian Breweries, became chief executive in 2023, with Patrick Wanjelani as chairman. Her tenure so far has been defined by steering the group through the 2024 drought and a national electricity shortage that forced costly reliance on generators and imported power.

The December 2025 results announcement showed the strategy holding up: revenue up 10.1 percent in kwacha and 2.5 percent in US dollars, gross profit up 18.2 percent in kwacha, and certifications from GlobalG.A.P and Smart Livestock Practices across Zamhatch, Kalundu Dairy, cropping, and both Novatek sites.

The group has invested in third-party certification rather than relying on self-declared standards. Its FY2025 results reported GlobalG.A.P and Smart Livestock Practices certification covering Zamhatch, Kalundu Dairy, the cropping division, and both Novatek stockfeed sites, independently audited programs for food safety, traceability, and responsible production.

Zambeef frames food security as a core mission given its scale in a country where animal protein access is limited, and its model replaces informal-market meat handling with a refrigerated, inspected chain. Environmental reporting on water, emissions, and land use is disclosed through company reporting rather than independent frameworks. The group is not a B Corp and holds no RSPO-style commodity certification.

The group's recent challenges have been environmental and economic rather than legal. The 2024 drought cut national hydropower output and forced expensive generator and imported electricity, a cost Zambeef disclosed in its results commentary. Earlier, regional meat trade disputes occasionally drew regulator attention to imports; the company manages food safety through its own laboratories and the cold chain standard. No major fines, product recalls, or governance scandals appear in recent reporting.