Business Den offers silver lining
Pauline Dikuelo | Tuesday September 13, 2022 06:00
The country's main agency for commercial and industrial development is calling on young innovators to submit business plans for its youth entrepreneurship programme, the Business Den.
The Business Den is BDC's project that aims to reach out to enterprising youths to give them an opportunity to pitch their business ideas in front of a panel of seasoned and established savvy professionals and entrepreneurs to secure a P500,000 grant and mentorship.
According to the agency, the panellists will probe the business opportunities presented to analyse their viability, scalability, and profitability. “In the end, the prospective entrepreneur may receive financial backing with the benefit of a broader range of business expertise. The corporation will be backing scaling ideas that have the potential to export across the African region,” stated the corporation.
The Business Den targets startups and existing businesses that young Batswana, who must not be over 35 years old by the closing date, are running. Launched in 2020, the entrepreneurship development programme already has beneficiaries that managed to secure grant funding with mentorship and networking opportunities. After beating competition against 243 other entrants, Alosa Group was declared the winner of the first-ever BDC Business Den, walking away with P500,000 funding on a grant basis along with mentorship opportunities.
The group, which has been in operation since 2020, produces Alosa Feeds and Alosa Biomass-Charcoal Briquettes. Operating in a 1,400sqm plant based in Francistown, Alosa Feeds commenced production in February this year following pandemic-induced movement restrictions and the State of Emergency. While the group manufactures mixed fowl feed in 10kg and 50kg, it also supplies other brand products such as Irvine’s chicken feed in 50kg broiler growers and starter feed bags.
This helped the group leverage existing brands familiar to the market to get a foot in. Alosa also produces pig feed which retails in 50kg bags making the manufacturer the sole producer in the north. Furthermore, the company has other products/stock feeds such as lucerne, maize-bran, and supplements like salt, protein, phosphate, and tick and fly blocks.