Cattle feed mill

What the business is

A cattle feed mill grinds and blends bran, broken rice, rice polish, oil cake and maize into a granular ration and sells it to farmers. The buyers are the dairy farms around you and the traders fattening cattle before Qurbani. The whole business rests on one sum: your cost per kilo of mix has to be below the company feed on the same shelf. At Kaunia in Rangpur on 25 September 2025 wheat bran was Tk 52/kg, chickpea husk Tk 62, broken rice Tk 38 and company granular feed Tk 55. Six months earlier the same four were Tk 37, Tk 52, Tk 29 and Tk 49. The gap is thin and a small move in input prices wipes it out, which means this trade does not work without buying inputs cheaply. The law is strict. Section 4 of the Fish Feed and Animal Feed Act 2010 forbids producing, processing, marketing or selling animal feed without a licence. The Department of Livestock Services issues it, it runs for one year, and renewal must be applied for 30 days before expiry. Breaking the Act carries up to one year in prison or a fine up to Tk 50,000, or both, and feed that fails a laboratory test is confiscated and the licence can be cancelled. Remember also that your customers are under pressure themselves: over 500 cattle farms in Chattogram alone shut in eighteen months, feed prices among the reasons.

Unit economics

What you need to start

• A grinder, a mixer, scales and a bag-stitching machine, plus a way to keep running when the power goes.Equipment
• Animal feed seller registration at the Upazila Livestock Office. Required: attested national ID, citizenship certificate, undertaking, two photographs, a handwritten application, land deed and a Department of Environment NOC where applicable. Fee by treasury chalan (code 1-4441-0000-2681, VAT 1-1133-0020-0311). The amount is not published on the office page.Licence
• Trade licence from the municipality, union parishad or city corporation: form Tk 10, licence book Tk 50, standard tax Tk 30, stamp Tk 150-300, licence fee Tk 100-60,000 by trade type.Licence
• Animal feed production licence under the Fish Feed and Animal Feed Act 2010. Section 4 prohibits production, processing, import, marketing, sale or distribution without one. Section 5 names the Director General of the Department of Livestock Services, or a first-class officer he authorises, as the licensing authority. Section 7 sets the term at one year with renewal applied for 30 days before expiry. Section 8 leaves the fee to rules; the amount is not in the Act.Licence
• Knowing the formula and being able to judge ingredient quality by eye and hand. Buying adulterated or substandard inputs gets the feed confiscated under section 11.Skill
• Rice mills for broken rice and polish, flour mills for bran, oil mills for cake, and a maize arot. Without more than one supplier for each you do not control your price.Supplier
• A dry, ventilated store. Bran and polish grow mould if they get damp, and that shows up in a laboratory test.Workspace

How the work runs

1. 1First count the dairy and fattening farms within ten kilometres and how many sacks a month they buy. The upazila livestock office keeps a list of farms.
2. 2Apply to the Department of Livestock Services for the licence. Section 4 of the Fish Feed and Animal Feed Act 2010 prohibits producing or selling without one.
3. 3Also register as an animal feed seller at the upazila livestock office; the treasury chalan code is 1-4441-0000-2681.
4. 4Take the trade licence, and a TIN from the NBR plus VAT registration if required.
5. 5Write down the daily price of every input - bran, broken rice, polish, cake, maize. These moved Tk 9-15 a kg in six months, and that is exactly the size of your margin.
6. 6Install the grinder and mixer, and set up bagging and weighing.
7. 7Fix your formula and keep it written down. Section 10 makes the government's prescribed standards compulsory.
8. 8Keep a retained sample of every batch. Under section 11 an authorised officer can take samples at any stage for testing.
9. 9Let farmers test it: give a few of them a few sacks cheap and watch what happens to milk or weight. A farmer will not leave the company sack without seeing a result.
10. 10Settle the credit terms in advance. Farmers pay after their milk money comes in, so it runs past a month.
11. 11Build stock three to four months before Qurbani, when fattening demand peaks. Eid moves about eleven days earlier each year, so do not plan by the calendar month.
12. 12Apply to renew the licence 30 days before it expires, as section 7 requires.

Sources

• মৎস্যখাদ্য ও পশুখাদ্য আইন, ২০১০ (২০১০ সনের ২ নং আইন)

  Collected: 16 Sept 2026

  Supports: Starting capital, Time to first revenue · বাংলাদেশ

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