The Burao H-Food slaughter house was constructed in 2000 and operation of the plant started in early 2004 after getting clearance license from Dubai municipality. The operations of the plant were temporarily halted in November 2004 up to March 2005 and this was due to change of ownership within the business.

The Slaughter house was constructed in such a way that it has both an automatic as well as a manual section that are both operational currently. The automatic one flays 80-100 per hour while the manual ones handle 300-400 per hour. There are three generators, pressurize, two refrigerated vehicles with a capacity of 800-900 carcasses are kept before they are transported to Berbera airport for export.

The slaughter house has an experienced workforce comprising of Slaughter men, Evisceration team, Final line, checking team Dressers, Electricians, Technicians, Veterinarians, Quality control team, Security and Cleaners.

Animals Slaughtered between April and December 2005 were 114,380 young small ruminants and for the whole year 2006 were 192,000 an average of 16,000hds/month. Slaughtering is done three days per week with 1800 for each batch.

The H-food company mostly purchases the animals from Burao markets and whenever there is a shortage of supply in Burao they go to Hargeisa and Borama markets especially for that particular age group.

The nature of payment for H-food company during purchase of animals is on cash bases on the spot, giving 1 USD of profit/head for those agents or individual petty traders supplies animals from outside Burao market since they use their own capital for purchasing animals and 0.2-0.3 USD of brokerage fee for those collecting animals from Burao market where the big agent determines price.

However when the carcasses reach the UAE, there is random check of about 10% of the carcasses, the weight of the carcasses is between 6 to 12kg. For quality control they check for the cleanliness, Odour and all the relevant documentation i.e. the certificates and importer agreement and contract.

To improve the quality of the meat supply H-food Company has embarked on development of forage supply at the land where the slaughter house is located re-fencing it to keep away illegal grazers and charcoal providers. The work is in progress. Three new water tanks with a capacity of 10,000litres each has been installed to ease water reticulation for the development of forage production.

Operation procedures:
Animals for slaughter are kept in holding grounds to rest while they are feed and provided with water. Since the animals are exported to Muslim states it recommended that they should be slaughtered according to the Halal standard as required by Islamic religion.
Other procedures are,
•    Flaying and evisceration
•    Post mortem examination
•    Preparation of carcasses
•    Cleaning
•    Last checking
•    Quality control by veterinarian
•    Dressing of carcasses using special clothing material (cotton)
•    Cold storage for 24-48 hours when they are ready for export
•    Transported to Berbera port for export to UAE where he following documentations are given: Halal certificate, municipality certificate, Mol inspection certificate, invoice for the port authorities and relevant ministries.

After the slaughtering process is over, cleaning of the premises usually follows.
The animal suppliers to the slaughter house are agents who collects the right aged animals from Burao and it’s surrounding districts(Odweyne, Caynabo, Duruqsi, balliweyn, Dhoqoshi),Hargeisa and Borama.