Why we raise what we sell
Buying stock at auction is cheaper than raising it. We do not, and the reason is the same reason our engineers stay on the plants they build.
There is a cheaper way to run a butchery than the way we run ours. Buy at auction, process to order, sell on price. Plenty of good operators do exactly that, and the margins are better.
We raise our own at Lusulu instead. The reason is not sentiment about farming.
What you give up when you buy in
When livestock arrives from an auction floor, the history arrives with it — and you cannot read it. What the animal was fed, what it was treated with, how long it stood in transit, how it was handled in the last twenty-four hours. Each of those shows up at the counter, in tenderness, in shelf life, in consistency week to week.
You can manage around unknown history with tighter processing controls and shorter shelf-life assumptions. What you cannot do is answer a customer's question honestly.
Non-GMO is a supply-chain claim, not a label
Anyone can print non-GMO on a sign. Standing behind it means controlling the feed, which means controlling the farm.
Our livestock is raised on our own farm in Lusulu, Matabeleland North — beef, goat, sheep, pork, chicken (broiler and traditional African roadrunner), and turkey for festive and catering orders. Fish comes from regional catch. Because the feed programme is ours, the claim is ours to make.
Cold chain is where quality is usually lost
Most quality loss in retail meat does not happen at the farm or in the processing hall. It happens in the gap between them, and again in the gap between processing and the counter.
Handling stock through our own facilities and our own cold-chain delivery removes both gaps. It is the least visible part of the operation and the one that most determines what a customer actually experiences.
What traceability is for
Full farm-to-counter traceability is not a marketing line. It is what lets us answer a specific question about a specific cut — and, when something is wrong, find out why rather than guess.
That matters most for our commercial clients. A restaurant, hotel or institutional caterer carries food-safety obligations of its own, and those obligations extend backwards into their supply chain. A supplier who can document the chain is not a nice-to-have for them; it is a condition of doing business.
Where you can buy
Prime Butcheries counters are open in Hwange and Silobela, with Gweru and Kwekwe launching in October 2026. Commercial supply, event packages priced by headcount and institutional catering are arranged through the same desk.
Talk to the farm and retail desk about supply or an event order.
The team behind the Lusulu farm and the Prime Butcheries retail counters.
