Poultry is a lucrative business in Nigeria, particularly when considering that Nigerians consume approximately 1.5 million tonnes of poultry meat annually, equivalent to roughly one billion birds per year.
Interestingly, only 30% of this demand is met locally and, according to market experts like Gbolade Adewole, who coordinates natnudO Foods’ Broiler Outgrower Scheme, this means Nigerian farmers are leaving ₦600 billion in sales on the table.
The problem is multi-layered, but Adewole believes the reason Nigeria can’t meet 100% of its poultry demand is the high cost of inputs and pricing.
Mbanefo Chinonleyum agrees, and he is building a startup that could solve these problems.
Before becoming a startup founder, Chinonleyum ran his own poultry business. He has learned first-hand just how difficult the market is. To him, a proper structure for the supply chain will fix the market.
The solution to that supply chain structure is Cubeseed Africa, a marketplace that brings poultry farmers directly in contact with the people who need their produce.
A simple solution, but one that addresses what Chinonleyum believes to be the major problem in the poultry industry.
Eliminating the middlemen
The middlemen are the problem, according to Chinonleyum. He describes them as mini gods who call the shots, set prices, and even determine how many birds a poultry farm produces in a year.
“Restaurants, hotels, and the like need chicken in large quantities, so they depend on middlemen to connect them to multiple farmers. These middlemen price down the farmers and sell at a higher price.”
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The middlemen also delay payments to farmers. Late payment means that the farmer does not get the investment needed to begin another production cycle.
“A farmer who produces only one batch at a time can only produce five to six batches in a year. It will be devastating to lose an entire production cycle.”
Cubeseed doesn’t just solve this problem by connecting farmers directly with clients who need their produce. It is altering the supply chain to ensure that both buyers and sellers are protected.
When a restaurant goes on the app, for example, it automatically gets recommendations based on its location and the quantity of produce needed. Chinonleyum says this feature reduces a process that would normally take three days to just a few seconds.
Another feature that protects buyers is the ability to pre-order produce. This means restaurants or hotels can request birds from farmers who have not yet produced them. Chinonleyum explains that doing this protects buyers from future price hikes.
To ensure both sides are protected, payment is made into an escrow system. This guarantees the farmer that the funds are available, while the buyer is reassured that payment will not be released until the produce is delivered satisfactorily. Cubeseed also goes a step further by offering credit to buyers. It has partnered with Sterling Bank to ensure that even when buyers cannot pay immediately, the farmer is not affected.
Beyond farmers and their clients
To Chinonleyum, Cubeseed goes beyond making farmers and the entities that need their poultry produce happy. It brings transparency and structure to a ₦900 billion market, ensuring the safety of anyone who wishes to participate.
“An investor can invest and be sure of their return on investment. I have been scammed before; I know what it is like.”
Chinonleyum’s experience with scams and his technical know-how as a farmer are not all he brings to Cubeseed. After finishing from XXX as the best graduating student in Agriculture, he went on to work in the oil and gas and insurance sectors.
“Those were the places I learned structure. The oil and gas sector, for example, has a strong documentation culture. So when I started running my farm, I documented everything.”
Chinonleyum’s decision to leave what he describes as a “sexy” oil and gas job for farming was born out of a passion for agriculture.
“My mum taught me how to farm. She has a small broiler farm she still runs today, and I have been helping out since I was young.”
This early experience sparked his interest in farming, but his time in the corporate workspace gave him an extra edge. He says he documented everything, down to the volume of water the birds drank.
“From that water record, I can actually tell what is going on with their health. I was nicknamed Big Chicken because people wanted to learn how I achieved these things.”
No tech yet
Chinonleyum’s dream to bring structure to Nigeria’s poultry supply chain has started, but not as a fancy app with AI features. He said the “no-code” solution they created as a proof of concept generated ₦27 million worth of orders in one week.
“We didn’t have the products to fulfil the orders we got; the farmers were not producing enough. One lesson we learned from that experience is to aggregate more farmers and build partnerships with integrated farms.”
The demand was so overwhelming that the first iteration of Cubeseed had to stop operating. When they relaunched, the orders were just as much, but the lesson from the second iteration was that credit is an important part of the market — hence the partnership with Sterling Bank.
Cubeseed is set to launch what could be its third and final iteration by the end of February 2026. Chinonleyum said the startup has been building a database of farmers and currently has over four thousand.
The startup was completely bootstrapped until it won ₦3 million at the Lagos Innovate Idea Hub 12.0 in January 2026.
Chinonleyum says the company is still open to funding, as he is confident in Cubeseed’s ability to generate revenue. The startup will charge 5.5% on all transactions that happen on the platform.
While Cubeseed is seeing strong demand, one risk is buyers and sellers taking transactions off the platform after trust has been built. However, the credit facility could serve as a major deterrent.
At a time when AI is all the rage, Cubeseed is taking a different route — bringing structure and coordination to a fragmented agricultural market. If it succeeds in fixing poultry distribution, it may not just make chicken cheaper; it could build the rails for other agricultural markets to follow.
