One operation,
built one well-made
module at a time.

Meva Farms is one attempt to fix the parts of Madagascar’s chicken supply that we can actually reach — how it’s raised, what it eats, and what the cost compounds to between the farm gate and the plate.
Founded
Meva Farms SARL
April 2026
Home
Fanandrana, Toamasina
17km from Tamatave
Why this exists

The chicken in Madagascar costs roughly what it costs in the UK. The wages don’t.

The compounding gap

The most affordable widely-eaten protein on the island is priced out of reach for most of the people who eat it. There’s no single reason for that.

Feed is mostly imported. Production is fragmented. The cold chain is patchy. Quality is inconsistent. Margins disappear somewhere between the farm gate and the consumer.

Meva Farms is one attempt to fix the parts of that we can actually reach: how the chicken is raised, what it eats, and what the cost compounds to along the way.

Where cost leaks

Imported feed

Where cost leaks

Fragmented production

Where cost leaks

Patchy cold chain

Where cost leaks

Inconsistent quality

The approach

Three things shape how we work.

None of them are clever. They’re choices that compound — about specialisation, about repetition, about whose money you spend.

01 / Specialisation

Integrated, not specialised.

The farm doesn’t just raise chickens. It produces a meaningful share of the feed those chickens eat — black soldier fly larvae, tilapia, azolla, and ground crops. Every output is an input somewhere else.

vs. single-crop monoculture

02 / Repetition

Replicable, not bespoke.

Every chicken house on the farm is identical. Same dimensions, same materials, same construction. The blueprint is the product. Once it works here, the same building goes on a cooperative farmer’s land.

vs. one-off, hand-tuned

03 / Capital

Bootstrapped, not borrowed.

The operation is being built out in stages with money the business earns, not money it owes. That means slower than venture-backed alternatives. It also means decisions get made on operational grounds.

vs. growth-at-all-costs

The team

Small, permanent,
paid above market.

We hire locally and pay above local market rates. The point of the operation isn’t just cheaper chicken — it’s better work for the people raising it. The team grows as production scales, not before.

Founder · Managing Director

Rob Parsons

Strategy, capital, design. Sets the long arc.

Head of Farming

Aimé Mariannot

Feed research, formulation, JADAM methodology. Keeps the loop closed between what the farm grows and what the birds eat.

Co-founder · Operations Manager

Narcisse Rambeloson

Construction, sourcing, vendor relationships, day-to-day operations and strategy. The farm runs because our operations lead runs it.

7 people

Farm Team

The team on site. Grows as production scales. Hired locally, paid above local market rates.

Why the headcount stays small.

A replicable module needs a small permanent team that knows it cold, plus a larger flexible team that scales with each module added. We size the permanent team to what one production module needs — and add another team when we add another module.

Where we operate

On the east coast,
17 km from the port.

The farm sits on a 10,000 m² plot in Fanandrana, Toamasina region — about 17 km from Tamatave on the road to the capital. Eastern Madagascar.

Roughly 3,000 mm of rain a year, cyclone season from November to April, humidity year-round. The design accounts for all of it: wind-rated roofing, deep-litter floors that handle humidity, rainwater capture sized for the rainfall.

Annual rainfall
3,000mm
Wet east coast
Cyclone season
NovApr
Wind-rated roofing
Humidity
Year-round
Deep-litter floors
Water
On-site
Captured + stored
Where we are right now

We publish what we’re doing as we do it.

Production · in progress

Three flocks in. The first production modules are being built out.

We’re building production against real numbers from three completed flock cycles, not assumptions.

Plot acquired and preparedDone
Chicken house built and stockedDone
Feed programme running (BSF, azolla, tilapia)Running
First production module · groundworkQ2 · 2026
○ First production flock cycleQ3 · 2026
○ First cooperative module replicated2027
Entity
Meva Farms SARL
SARL au capital de 2 000 000 Ar · RCS Toamasina
Incorporated
April 2026
Location
Tanambaovao Tananambo, CR Fanandrana, Toamasina
Madagascar
Funding
Bootstrapped
No outside capital. Reinvested earnings only.
Follow
The Tamatave Notebook
Biweekly · build progress, what’s working, what isn’t

Want to see it in person?

We host a small number of farm visits each month — partners, restaurants, cooperative farmers and curious neighbours. Bring boots.