Padenga plans 'big' for US business

Padenga plans 'big' for US business
Published: 31 March 2014
Padenga Holdings, a Zimbabwe Stock Exchange listed company, will double the sale of alligator skins in this financial year at its American operation, Lone Star, and at the same time focus on increasing throughput at the new Skinning Services Plant.

Chief executive Mr Gary Sharp told analysts during a tour of the group's operations in Kariba last week that alligator operations had seen rapid expansion since acquisition with production volumes more than doubling in the period.

The group said production volumes had increased three-fold with 23 310 animals available to harvest this year.

"We will double alligator skins this year, while we will carry over 4 800 alligators. We will hit 20 000 skins in F15 while a further 4 800 will be carried over. The big expansion is in the US."

The group had invested in a dedicated alligator skinning plant in Delcambre, Louisiana and a meat processing plant in Texas. Both facilities were commissioned in 2013.

The group has also initiated a captive breeder project which when fully operational will be the first of its magnitude in the industry. Under the project the group will seek to at least process between 35 000 and 40 000 of wild alligators.

In the 18-month reporting period to December, the group had achieved alligator sales of 5 943 skins in November 2013 from 7 882 skins in 2012. Finance Director Mr Oliver Kamundimu said the drop had been deliberate after postponing the harvesting of 2 400 alligators to achieve increased margin on medium size skins.

Locally, the group expects skin sales to be flat at 43 000 skins but would hit 46 000 in F15 and rise to 48 000 in 2016.

"Our customer asked us if we could do 50 000 skins but remember it takes time to grow the skins to the quality that's required."

Padenga expects to be self sufficient in egg and hatchling production by 2016, incubating from the farm rather than taking from the wild. The group said presently 74 percent of egg production was domestic while the remainder is collected from the wild.

In the year to December, the group incubated 18 822 eggs from the wild while 53 355 were farm eggs giving a total of 72 177. Company official Mr Jim Kazangarare said the farm has a total of 5 046 breeders. The group is given a quota from National Parks and areas from which to collect eggs from.

"We have two areas from which to collect eggs from while the limit of what we can collect is at 19 000."
- The Herald
Tags: Padenga, Crocodile,

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