Darko Farms, one of the largest poultry-processing companies in Ghana.  
276 employees, down from 320 about a year ago, due to restructuring.  
They plan to be up to 400 employees in two years.  Darko farms acreage-five farms around Kumasi-average 7 acres each.  The biggest is 20 acres.  Darko farms was established in 1967 by their father, Kwabena Darko, as a hatchery and egg producer.  

Sammy Darko, Managing Director, age mid-30s-secondary schooling in Ghana.  BA from Kansas State University.  Graduate study-Netherlands Poultry Science.  As a result of studying in the Netherlands they bought their equipment in the Netherlands.  
Jonathon Darko, age 28, Marketing Manager.  
Son of Darko.
Recently his BA in accounting from U. of Houston.
Has been back in Ghana for about a month.
(His sister, Maxine Darko, received a BA from U. of Texas-Austin; she just returned to the US to give birth). 
He is back to stay and his present project is to restructure their financial system in preparation for public offering.  

Capacity-they process 2000 birds a day.  Their goal is to get up to 10,000 a day.  Most of their sales are in Ghana, some other West-African countries, such as Burkina Faso.  Major competitors-small farms in Ghana, and imports.  

They had an association with Tyson foods, Arkansas, US, to introduce different kinds of chickens to farmers.  They were importing from Tyson, 9000 tons a year of broiler imports.  They need to develop refrigeration market-the new product developed in Ghana a few years ago was cut-ups, selling packaged chicken parts.  This was new for Ghanaian customers, who were accustomed to buying live, whole chickens.  But this has been successful because the costs are cheaper.  They can buy a part for "just a chicken taste in their stews."  

His father started selling eggs.  The egg-selling business is easy entry, small-scale farmers.  Gets to be a glut in the market of eggs.  They introduced broilers about 15 years ago (1982), but the market wouldn't accept it.  Ghanaians ate chickens only on special occasions and they preferred to slaughter it themselves.  Also, the Muslim market, etc., requires special slaughtering procedures.  So, at that time they were selling mainly live chickens and Ghanaians preferred the tough chickens due to the cooking process of cooking stews the whole day-that would tenderize it.  When they started selling the "soft" chickens they had to educate the consumer to this new product-for example, if they cooked the soft chicken all day long it would end up in pieces, like mush.  This was true even in urban areas.  So, they had to develop this new product through marketing education.  What contributed to the success of the new product was when restaurant started serving more chicken, the chicken was tasty to the Ghanaian customers, so people started demanding it in their homes.  It took us about 5 years to get the broilers into the market share successfully, but then imports came in to take advantage of that market.  Many hens/layers came from Europe.  

Local production
Currently, only 40% of the market is satisfied by local producers of chicken products.  60% are imports.  By-products ?, intestines, go to pig feed.  Chicken feather go for pillows and mattresses.  By-products are something that can be developed.   

Networking/Innovations:  S. Darko attended the Atlanta Egg and Poultry Fair in January 2000.
"Outsourcing"/flexibility-plan to contract farmers to grow maize, for feed, and contract farmers to grow the broilers.  

Major problems
Interest rate and foreign exchange-"we've been there before."