What the plan needs to answer
- Where will the shop be, and who will buy from you?
- What will you sell: beef, goat, mutton, chicken, matumbo, choma?
- How much will it cost to open?
- How many kilos will you sell a day, and at what price?
- What is left each month after paying for meat, rent, staff and bills?
- How long until you get your start-up money back?
If you are borrowing from a bank, SACCO or chama, these are the questions they will ask. Write the answers down in that order.
1. The location and your customers
Describe the area in a few lines: estate or town, how many people pass by, other butcheries nearby and what they charge, and who your customers are (families, hotels, schools, choma spots). Note anything that brings steady sales, like a market day or a matatu stage.
2. Start-up costs
List every cost before you open. Get real quotes; the figures below are only an example of how to lay it out.
| Item | Example (KES) | Your figure |
|---|---|---|
| Rent deposit and first month | 60,000 | |
| Fit-out: tiles, drainage, counter, fly screens | 80,000 | |
| Display chiller and freezer | 150,000 | |
| Scale, block, knives, saw, hooks, mincer | 40,000 | |
| Licences and permits | 30,000 | |
| Opening stock (2 to 3 days) | 100,000 | |
| Cash for the first month's bills | 50,000 | |
| Total | 510,000 |
The licences you need are listed in How to start a butchery business in Kenya.
3. Daily sales and gross profit
Estimate the kilos you will sell on a normal day, product by product. Be careful here: most new shops expect more customers than they get in the first months.
| Product | Kg a day | Buy at | Sell at | Gross profit a day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beef with bones | 40 | 560 | 700 | 5,600 |
| Steak | 8 | 600 | 850 | 2,000 |
| Goat | 10 | 650 | 850 | 2,000 |
| Matumbo | 8 | 280 | 400 | 960 |
| Total | 66 | 10,560 |
Example figures only. Gross profit here is (selling price − buying price) × kilos. In real life some meat is lost as bone and trimming, so work out your true margin with the profit per kilo guide and reduce these numbers.
4. Monthly expenses and profit
| Monthly | Example (KES) |
|---|---|
| Gross profit (10,560 × 26 working days, less 10% for waste) | 247,100 |
| Rent | −30,000 |
| Two staff | −36,000 |
| Electricity and water | −15,000 |
| Transport, packaging, cleaning | −20,000 |
| Licences (spread over the year), M-Pesa charges, other | −10,000 |
| Net profit | 136,100 |
With the start-up cost of KES 510,000 in the example, this shop would get its money back in about four months, if the sales come in as planned. Write your own figures and then test a bad month: what if you sell 20% less?
5. Risks and how you will handle them
- Meat or money going missing. Count stock and cash every evening and match kilos sold to money received. See how to stop losses.
- Credit customers who do not pay. Set a limit per customer and follow up weekly.
- Spoilt meat. Buy to your sales and keep the chiller at 4°C. See keeping meat fresh.
- Rising buying prices. Review your margin whenever the supplier's price changes.
- Power cuts. Plan for a generator or inverter if outages are common.
Keep the plan alive
A plan is only useful if you compare it with what really happens. Once the shop is open, record every day's kilos, cash and M-Pesa, and each month check the real profit against the plan. Butchery software like MyButchery does that adding up for you and shows profit by product and by branch.
Common questions
How much capital do I need to start a butchery in Kenya?
It depends mostly on rent, the size of your chiller and how much stock you hold. Build your own list of costs with real quotes; a small shop can need several hundred thousand shillings once fit-out, equipment, licences and opening stock are added up.
How much profit does a butchery make per day?
It depends on the kilos you sell and your margin per kilo after waste. A shop selling 60 kilos a day at a true margin of KES 120 a kilo makes KES 7,200 gross profit a day before rent, staff and bills.
Do banks lend for a butchery business?
Many banks, SACCOs and microfinance lenders do. They will want a simple plan like this one, your records of sales if you are already trading, and often security or a guarantor.