Two Western students are bucking economic turmoil in their home country and charting a new course in entrepreneurship by creating a brand in an ancient, unorganized dairy sector.
The result is part case study, part successful community engagement, and the founders are poised to go global.
When brothers Adeel Shahzad, BMOS’18, and Fahd Shahzad, HBA’23, decided to create Goat Pure in May 2022, it was Pakistan’s first professional goat dairy farm and among a few in the world.
The Shahzad family has a storied entrepreneurial history ranging from leather textiles to chicken egg farming. But to run a business with no precedent in Pakistan was always a risk.
Pakistan has one of the world’s largest goat populations and they play an important role in the country’s cultural landscape. Goat leather was a dominant export before cheaper synthetic brands started flooding the market. Goats are an important source of protein. The country is also the fourth largest producer of dairy; the vast majority of which is cow’s milk.
Given these factors, the opportunity to launch Pakistan’s first professional goat dairy farm was one the Shahzad brothers couldn’t pass on.
But like all good entrepreneurship stories, Goat Pure is more than just a business opportunity. For Adeel in particular, the story was personal.
Having struggled through various health issues arising from his lactose intolerance, Adeel turned to goat milk and saw a marked difference in his well-being. But the condition struck a deeper chord when he noticed his young son struggling with similar issues during his transition from formula to solid milk. His pediatrician recommended goat milk, but there was a problem: There was no major label in Pakistan selling safe pasteurized goat milk.
Adeel did some research and figured out how to pasteurize the milk at home and they witnessed immediate results. Soon, word got around the community and requests started pouring in, transforming a personal problem into a potential business.
While goats produce a fraction of the milk a cow does, goat milk includes higher amounts of calcium and protein and lower levels of lactose. Goat milk is also less inflammatory and includes fewer allergens.
Starting something new
While studying at Western, Fahd was visiting Pakistan when Adeel was developing the business. Fahd was keen to contribute to the venture.
Having taken courses at Ivey Business School on digital marketing, social media and entrepreneurship, Fahd has been a vital part of growing Goat Pure’s web and social presence, integral to educating their customers on the benefits of goat milk.
Part of that process also involves building a modern brand aware of issues outside the financial sphere. For Fahd and Adeel, one of those issues is sustainability. They note that the use of plastics is often overlooked in Pakistan. The brothers decided to use glass containers to reduce Goat Pure’s carbon footprint.
Charting the course ahead
During the past few years, Pakistan, like many countries in the region has been dealing with major economic instability, pushing the government to stall imports of non-essential luxury goods.
This has been a major blow to hotels and high-end businesses that serve imported European products like goat cheese.
But it has also opened an exciting opportunity for the Shahzad brothers and Goat Pure.
They are conducting taste tests on their first batch of goat cheeses. Adeel notes that since over 80 per cent of goat milk is used to produce cheese, it is hugely important for Goat Pure to move into the cheese market.
While they deal with the day-to-day of growing their brand across Pakistan and seek export opportunities across the Asian and Middle Eastern regions, Adeel and Fahd aren’t afraid to dream big.
For Adeel, getting Goat Pure into the formula industry would be their long-term goal. It is an arduous process, with plenty of regulations and testing. But if all the pieces align, don’t be surprised to see a goat milk baby formula with the name Goat Pure attached to it.
“Our goal is to build a brand that always prioritizes quality. We plan to export our products and bring the essence of our brand to the world,” said Fahd. Throughout the last year of his HBA, Fahd started picking courses that helped him directly apply his learnings to Goat Pure. “Whenever I’m doing a case study, I have a Google Doc where I write down all the notes that I can apply to Goat Pure. Even with a course like behavioural economics, I’m thinking about what behavioral insights we can use to understand our target market and improve Goat Pure,” said Fahd. Rediscovering entrepreneurship For Adeel, growing up in Pakistan and attending a private school distorted his view of entrepreneurship. All of his classmates were from entrepreneurial business families. It seemed like the norm. Moving to Canada, he was thrown into a new environment where he attended high school with kids from all walks of life. He saw people striving to study harder and longer to create their own futures. With that newfound respect for entrepreneurship, Adeel has operated a number of businesses under the family’s Din Group. For Fahd, entrepreneurship was an innate desire that he didn’t know how to process initially. Everyone wants to do it, but they get stuck at the first step. How do we come up with an idea? What to do next? During his first year at Western, Fahd joined the Ivey Entrepreneurship Bootcamp led by Ivey alum and serial entrepreneur, Ash Singh, HBA’04. Going through the step-by-step process of building a business, and understanding the pitfalls, really changed Fahd’s trajectory at university. Fahd was part of the bootcamp’s winning team, AfterSell, and continued to work with fellow Ivey HBA and serial entrepreneur, Armon Shokravi, HBA ’22, on their Shopify-centric software start-up. As he leans deeper into Goat Pure, Fahd is also looking to complement his business degree with certifications for goat dairy production and management.“Our goal is to build a brand that always prioritizes quality. We plan to export our products and bring the essence of our brand to the world.” – Fahd Shahzad, co-founder, Goat Pure
Charting the course ahead
During the past few years, Pakistan, like many countries in the region has been dealing with major economic instability, pushing the government to stall imports of non-essential luxury goods.
This has been a major blow to hotels and high-end businesses that serve imported European products like goat cheese.
But it has also opened an exciting opportunity for the Shahzad brothers and Goat Pure.
They are conducting taste tests on their first batch of goat cheeses. Adeel notes that since over 80 per cent of goat milk is used to produce cheese, it is hugely important for Goat Pure to move into the cheese market.
While they deal with the day-to-day of growing their brand across Pakistan and seek export opportunities across the Asian and Middle Eastern regions, Adeel and Fahd aren’t afraid to dream big.
For Adeel, getting Goat Pure into the formula industry would be their long-term goal. It is an arduous process, with plenty of regulations and testing. But if all the pieces align, don’t be surprised to see a goat milk baby formula with the name Goat Pure attached to it.