Chickin began with three college friends sharing smashed fried chicken, an Indonesian regional cuisine called ayam geprek, and a passion for creating a real, positive impact in Indonesia: Tubagus Syailendra, Ashab Alkafi, and Ahmad Syaifulloh Imron.

Starting as small-scale farmers, they were quick to recognize the inefficiencies in the poultry sector. From maximizing yield to addressing supply-demand mismatches and enhancing operational excellence, they saw firsthand the opportunities for innovation.

As the largest Muslim nation in Southeast Asia, Indonesia relies heavily on chicken as a primary source of protein. However, there is an intricate and multi-faceted relationship between climate change and poultry farming. “Climate change and agriculture are interconnected and interrelated. It is a cycle with cascading effects, ” Tubagus explains.

A critical input for poultry farming is feed production, which relies on crops like corn and soybeans. Climate change causes inefficiencies in crop productivity that lead to volatile chicken feed prices, impacting poultry farmers’ operations and costs. Moreover, chickens themselves contribute to climate change by releasing methane and ammonia gasses from their waste. These emissions exacerbate global warming, worsening the quality of the environment in which chickens live. Rising temperatures and altered weather patterns directly impact the health and well-being of chickens, further complicating the challenges faced by poultry farmers.

For these reasons, Tubagus and his co-founders established a vision for Chickin to bridge the gap in protein accessibility and promote health in Indonesia through innovation and sustainability.

“Back when we were farmers, maybe because we were young, we had a spirit of innovation. We did research, talked to lecturers and fellow students, and tried to implement all our research on our own farm. From that process, the product that we built was the IoT device. In 2017, we had this big, ugly black box that we put in the cages. That was our MVP,” he laughed.

From MVP to final product

“The most important thing in the agriculture sector is how we manage the community. Our goal wasn’t solely about achieving a billion-dollar valuation. We chose to focus on how to create impact and make that impact sustainable, and that opened up the right path forward,” said Tubagus.

With this mindset, the founders knew they had to build community engagement before monetizing. They created Chickin, a community base for poultry farmers, which was built via WhatsApp to connect and share knowledge. This community served as a testing ground for Chickin’s IoT technology, which has since evolved into the Chickin Smart Farm. This system utilizes IoT to remotely regulate cage climate, enhance livestock living conditions, and streamline data collection for improved performance tracking. By optimizing input efficiencies, such as feed and electricity use, Chickin Smart Farm increases profitability for chicken farmers.

Tubagus underscores the role of mindset in exploring different paths to profitability. Initially, Chickin ventured into trading, but as their ecosystem continued to grow, they gathered more data through the IoT technology, which reveals multiple ways they can make efficiencies from upstream to downstream.

“It turns out that our IoT was just an entry point when we first saw this as our ultimate goal. Since then we realized that the ultimate goal should be to provide the best possible improvement to farmers. With our network, we can identify the ‘where’s and ‘how’s,” he said.

Now, Chickin Fresh distributes chicken meat directly from farmers, frozen or fresh, catering to business needs. Chickin’s chicken meat product quality is safeguarded and adheres to market standards in terms of freshness, safety and taste through the streamlining of the value chain. Additionally, Chickin offers financing and facilitates B2B sales with data transparency, addressing supply-demand mismatches.

Read the full insights at East Ventures.