The company was started by Hillary Chikambi and his wife at a time when he had just gotten what seemed at the time as their family’s big break. Hillary had just been employed as an accountant at a thriving NGO that focused on hearing healthcare, but instead of enjoying the perks of his new employment he set out together with his wife to start a chicken farm in Chiweshe, his rural home. As he recounts his story you can feel the excitement and passion beaming through his voice.
The story starts with him unemployed. He had just been laid off from his as an accountant as he holds a degree in accounting. He needed a way to support his family. The only other thing he knew was taking care of chickens.
Growing up, my father had a passion for farming. He was into backyard and would have batches of fifty broilers at a time and every six weeks he would sell them. It was a cycle; he was invested in that, and we were the labour. Every morning, we would wake up, to do our assigned tasks before going to school. We also had a backyard garden, and we would also sell vegetables. That was our life growing up. I developed this connection with farming at a very young age. So, when I lost my first job, the only thing that I knew better than accounting was what I grew up doing.
He went back to his roots and started rearing chickens. He shared his idea with a friend who had just gotten a lump sum from his job and the friend decided to invest into his idea. Just like his father, he started the project in the backyard of his house in Msasa Park. Just like any other entrepreneur in their minds, what Hillary and his friend saw were the big profits that were on the way. But alas, that was not the direction their new venture took. Batch after batch, they lost money until heavy rains sealed their fate with floods that killed their third batch of three hundred chicks. Hillary lost his only hope of a livelihood, and his friend that day lost the money he had invested.
But soon his fortunes were to turn. He got a job, and just when the money started coming in, he convinced his wife to try again and this time they were going to do it right. He went back home to Chiweshe and bought a 6-hectare plot and started putting all their money into that new venture. They built a fowl run with compartments that could carry three hundred chickens each and they could slaughter a batch every week and that was the birth of Petani.
His background in accounting and exposure to the corporate world helped him get his first contract to supply a supermarket and their business took off from there. They started with three fowl runs and now they have ten. They have also diversified the business and are now into maize farming, and horticulture, and he hopes to expand into cattle rearing and piggery.
The foray into the restaurant business
One of the businesses that Petani Fresh Produce was supplying was a restaurant in the Milton Park suburb of Harare. When it was faced with closure because of the change in priorities of its proprietor during Covid 19, Hillary helped the staff of that restaurant to negotiate to continue running the place. He did this to maintain the market for his chickens and he did not know then that he was opening a door that would lead him into the restaurant business.
The team that he had helped acquire the restaurant in Milton Park managed it well and they started growing. They had an advisor in Hillary, and they approached him again to help them secure a location to set up another branch of their restaurant. That is how Hillary found their current location at 17 Buckingham Road in the Eastlea suburb of Harare. When the team came and saw the place, they did not like it and decided to keep looking, but Hillary was drawn to this place. He saw the potential in it and was not willing to let it go.
He had the chickens from his farm. He also had vegetables, tomatoes, and maize. The opportunity he saw in this was a chance to add value to the products that he was producing at the farm. A bird that he was selling for $3.50 per kg could easily sell for $10 when being served. What was stopping him from opening a restaurant? The answer was simple he did not understand the business and to remedy this he set out to learn and enrolled in a course that connected him with mentors who had been in the restaurant business and knew it well and these mentors became his guide in this new business.
On the 1st of November 2022, they opened Petani Kitchen. The first day was good. Friends and family that he had invited to grace the opening gave them good sales on that day, but after that it was dry. He had a staff of four and rentals to pay and no one was showing up. Some days they would sell a few plates and on other days no one would show up. The numbers did not quite improve for the rest of that month until someone walked in, in December and was quite taken to the place and wanted to have their wedding there.
Petani Kitchen hosted that wedding and went all out to cater for the event. One hundred and fifty people attended and that was how their fortune turned. Since then, they have hosted graduation parties and have become the go to lunch place for corporate offices in the neighbouring suburbs.
Right now, things have cooled down in the NGO sector with most outfits failing to secure grants to fund their programs, but Hillary has created the space to allow him to continue volunteering his services even while taking care of his family and the staff of nine permanent employees and many seasonal workers who help at the farm. He is truly a farmer on a mission.
On asking him what Petani means, Hillary refers us to an Indonesian friend who used to affectionately call him Petani, a word that means Farmer in his native language. So Petani Produce literally means the farmer’s fresh produce and Petani Kitchen is indeed the farmer’s kitchen as it is driven by their farm to table concept.
I can assure you that whatever we’re serving on your plate, I know every ingredient and the way it’s been sourced. I can assure you that eighty percent of whatever is on your plate came from us. I know how the chickens were raised, prepared and served. It takes hard work to keep that promise. Sometimes I wake up at 3 a.m. and drive to Chiweshe to ensure that when the farm workers start, I am there and am back in Harare at 8:30 am to ensure when the restaurant is open, I am also there.
Entrepreneurs are just like farmers. When you put that seed down, you anticipate a fruit; you anticipate a harvest, but there are a lot of things that happen in between the time you plant up to the time you hope to harvest. But the idea remains, there will be a harvest. Sometimes the rains don’t come, but the hope is still there. Sometimes the rains come and there is too much of it, but the hope remains. There will be a harvest! Whether it will be a bumper one or not is another thing, but definitely, once you put a seed down, it will grow, it will produce fruit.
The quality of the fruit depends on everything happening in between. And everything happening in between represents both what you put in and what the environment also puts in. That is how we operate a business. As an entrepreneur, put in the hard work, maintain the discipline. Those are things you can control
Then, just like the rains may come or may not come, those are the things beyond our control. We may not be able to control the economy, but we can keep what we can control in check. We can take courses to improve our knowledge. We can take care of our employees. Our employees are like family. How they are kept is something I can control. How they feel about work is something I can control. The quality of the food we serve is something we can control. Beyond that, I can then stand and say, whatever those sales are at the end of the day, we have put our best to making sure we are ready to serve those people.
I left Petani kitchens overwhelmed by emotion. The passion that has carried them through many battles was evident in their voices when they told their story. Their faith, that has endured so much adversity is sure set to carry them through many more battles to come.