Kivu Choice, a vertically integrated aquaculture company based in Rwanda, took the title of fastest growing fish farm in Africa this year.

The company’s growth was catalysed by their impressive rehabilitation of Kigembe Fish Farm, a 70-year-old government asset, where they increased production by 70 times in two years and a half.

In an interview with The New Times, Kivu Choice founder and CEO, Kamran Ahmad, said the company has made significant strides this year and has plans to achieve even more.

Founded in 2021, Kivu Choice’s aquaculture operation is now producing close to 10 million fish meals a year, according to Ahmad.

"We harvested 60 tonnes in January of this year, and we are now harvesting about 300 tonnes each month. So, we’ve grown five times over in that time, which positions us as the fastest growing fish farm in Africa at the moment. And we are going to keep growing at pace,” he said, indicating that production is expected to continue climbing rapidly through 2025 and beyond.

He noted that the company has been able to bring down the cost of animal protein in the markets in which they operate by as much as 25 per cent, observing that they are now selling a kilo of fish at as low as Rwf2,600 at branches across the country, including Kigali and along the Kivu Belt.

They will also soon expand into the Northern and Eastern provinces.

Rwanda’s fresh fish market potential is huge, and tech is helping unlock it

Ahmad recounts that, although they were not experiencing much demand for their harvests in Rwanda when the company first started, the situation soon changed dramatically.

"We launched a number of branches across Kigali and the Kivu Belt, and we were selling on average between 30 to 50 kilos a day [per branch],” he said.

The firm has since significantly improved its branch model to overcome the early low sales challenges. It built an entire branch app in-house to track all of its data throughout the system, and using that data, it is then able to create insights that its business uses to optimise the allocation of inventory across all its branches, optimise pricing, and then also track a range of different metrics that ensure that it is able to continue improving its customer service.

"Since we’ve been implementing all these measures, we’ve seen massive growth in our branch sales. So, we’ve seen anything between 30 per cent to 80 per cent month-over-month growth for the last six months straight,” Ahmad said, indicating that they sell fish within 24 to 48 hours of harvest, thanks to their logistics system.

"Now we’re selling, on average, close to 300 kilos a day; some of our branches are even selling over one tonne of fish a day,” he pointed out, adding that "we’ve seen a significant spike in demand.”

He observed that consumers in Rwanda are moving away from the reliance on imported, deep-frozen fish, which is often sold as much as one year after harvesting. As customers discover that fresh fish is now available in the country, "we are seeing a kind of viral effect on the market.”

A profitable company

So far, Ahmad said, about $8 million has been invested through the company, "and we are going to be investing roughly another $10 million more over the next two years up to 2026.”

"We hit profitability before the end of year two of operations, which is rare for venture-backed businesses to manage in that kind of time frame, growing as quickly as we’ve been growing. So, it’s proof that this industry has got a lot of potential and that there’s a clear need for what we’re doing.”

Preparing for the next stage of growth

The company is now preparing to scale from a regional leader to a global leader in tilapia production,” explained Ahmad. "To do so, we’re now installing 30-metre diameter cages and the associated mechanised infrastructure.”

"Every one of these cages can hold half a million fish at a time, or 200 tonnes,” he said.

Looking forward, he said, the company is aiming to increase production from the current 300 tonnes of fish per month to 2,500 tonnes per month. This would equate to 30,000 tonnes per year, a target that they plan to achieve in less than five years.

(Rwanda’s total fish production was estimated at 46,495 tonnes in the financial year 2022–2023, according to the latest report from the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources.)

Contributing to Rwanda’s fight against stunting among children

Ahmad observed that he believes fish farming presents one of the best solutions for affordable protein production. "Kivu Choice fish is now the most affordable animal protein on the market. This supports our assertion that fish farming is one of the best mechanisms for alleviating the nutrition deficit in the region,” he said.

Rwanda has placed child stunting among its national priorities, and Ahmad noted, "Our team at Kivu Choice is working hard to help tackle this challenge, given the affordability of protein we are able to create through our business.”

Under the second National Strategy for Transformation (NST2), the government of Rwanda has targeted a reduction of child stunting to 15 per cent by 2029, from a baseline of 33 per cent.

With respect to future plans, Ahmad said that the company is now preparing to tackle the problem at the source by creating distribution capacity directly to those who need it most, including early childhood development centres and preschools.

Ahmad and his team are also exploring the diversification of their product offering to include nutrient-dense fish powder that would improve ease of consumption by young children, and reduce the portion cost for low-income consumers.