A Malaysian quail farmer taps demand from supermarkets.
After graduating with an economics degree from a local university in Kedah, the northern-most state in Peninsular Malaysia, Pahdin Talib knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur. He tried his hand at rubber tapping, rearing chickens and running a restaurant. Then in 1995, Pahdin, 31, noticed that there were plenty of chickens, but no quails in the supermarkets. He knew he had found an unexploited niche market - to raise and supply quails.
"Quail breeding has low capital outlays with high-return potential," he says. "Also there wasn't much competition." With his nephew, Rosli Din, 35, Pahdin set up a company, Puyuh Nusantara Enterprise with M$50,000 (US$13,150) of savings.
Most of the capital went into equipment and supplies. "We started off by building some quail huts for 500 quails around our house with M$25, 000."
Pahdin bought day-old chicks from bird sellers in Kedah and nearby Perak and proceeded to raise the birds for 34 days. When the chicks were 35 days old, they were slaughtered, processed and packaged for sale to supermarkets and restaurants. Though there are no specific government guidelines regulating the care of quails, Puyuh Nusantara quails had to be certified halal (slaughtered according to Islamic law) by the Ministry of Religious Affairs.
Raising the tiny birds for 35 days is not just a matter of fattening them up - it is a challenge to keep them alive. Pahdin - who works with a team of 30 contract workers, who slaughter, clean and package the birds for sale - says that while the vast majority of chicks survive, 10% die because of illness.
Early on, Pahdin learned a simple, but effective, method of increasing the survival rate. "We were using 100 watt bulbs to provide heating for 150 quails in enclosures, and we noticed that we were losing more birds than expected.
"We realised that insufficient and irregular heat was the problem, so we switched to using a heater and the loss rate went down significantly."
Pahdin says the quails, which weigh between 160 and 190 grams, are sold to wholesalers for M$1.40 and M$1.60 for a dressed bird. Making a decent profit depends on the volume of birds sold and the cost of quail feed. In early 1998, when the Malaysian economy fell into recession, Pahdin had to shut down the business. "We were doing well and creating a market for the quails, in fact we were increasing market awareness. But quail feed went up 40% and we just could not make a profit with that kind of cost increase."
Pahdin now views the recession as "a challenge we had to face". He ran a restaurant during the crisis period, but never lost hope of reviving his quail business. By April last year, he decided the economy had recovered sufficiently to re-enter the quail market. He pumped in capital of M$45,000. "From then on, we did not look back," he says, citing a recent profit of 30%.
In addition to three quail houses in Kampung Paya Mengkuang, Pahdin has built a M$30,000 quail house in Kampung Bukit Kecil, west of capital city Alor Setar. Each hold of the house can hold up to 60,000 quails. However, at the moment the houses aren't operating at capacity, with workers only processing 24,000 birds a month, but with increasing demand, Pahdin predicts this won't be far off. He plans to open 10 more quail houses in the future and to be processing 60,000 birds a month, from a future stock of 20,000 quails.
Despite the two-year break, Pahdin says his company is still ahead of the competition. "Firstly, we can [vouch for] the quality of the quails, because we raise the birds ourselves from when they are a day old until we process them.
"Also, we built a strong marketing base during the early years and we went after the market ourselves. Some other companies tend to rely on the government to find them a market. We also know how to raise the birds, while late entrants have to catch up on experience and knowledge." Next Pahdin plans to buy incubators to start Puyun Nusantara's own quail hatchery.
A major client with growth potential is the French supermarket chain, Carrefour. "Recently, the Carrefour Supermarket in Penang asked us to supply as many as 8,000 birds a week. We have also been asked to supply quails to their other branches in Penang." The company also supplies restaurants in Kedah and Penang Island, south of Alor Setar, as well as frozen food stores in Kuala Lumpur.
Pahdin says he has received inquiries from Brunei, Singapore and even South Africa, but is unable to capitalise on the potential export market.
"We don't have the capital, and banks just don't have the experience with this type of business. The banks aren't willing to lend us the money we need to become exporters," Pahdin says ruefully. "They just don't know quails."