Start a business in Maize milling in Zambia

Maize milling business is a huge opportunity for Zambia and many other Africa Countries. Zambia maize mills can separate to two kind, one kind of maize milling is small scale maize mills, and another kind is large scale maize mills. 

For the small scale maize mills in Zambia, the main market for them is the local area, the local people consumption. For the large scale maize mills the market may out of Zambia, like export to Lubumbashi RD Congo; Mozambique etc.

These large scale milling companies are able to spend significantly on marketing and enjoy customer brand recognition. They are located in areas of established infrastructure and have strong relationships with  maize producers, grain traders and outlets. Large scale milling companies do however struggle to serve remote locations due to transportation costs. They also process such high volumes that quality is often neglected. Smaller outlets are typically ignored and customer support is virtually nonexistent.

As the only small scale mill in the Siavonga and Chirundu area, the following advantages over competitors: 
· Location – small scale mill is able to facilitate frequent deliveries assuring constant availability. Being local also saves transportation costs. 
· Product Quality – There is currently no quality control enforcement in Zambia. Larger mills do occasionally produce poor quality meal due to negligence or simply as a result of processing large volumes of product. Given the manageable size of the small scale  mill, such quality control can be performed regularly as needed without any difficulties. 
· Local Knowledge – Traditional maize marketing channels in Zambia consists of: Producer → Grain Trader → Milling Agent → Retailer → Consumer. With small scale maize mill African partner’s close ties with local businesses, small scale maize mills will be able to buy maize without the use of grain traders as well as sell roughly 50% of the product independent of retailers.
 
The large maize mill company advantage:

Everyday can produce much more tons maize, and the cost of one ton maize meal the price can be put lower, if the small scale maize mills one ton should earn 100USD; the large maize mills, can put the profit for 80USD; when calculate the total profit for the larch mills is still much higher than the small scale mills.