How to Compare Turnkey Poultry Proposals

Step 1: verify the offer is actually turnkey

Before comparing prices, confirm each proposal covers the complete scope below. An offer missing several of these items is a supply contract with a turnkey title, and it must be compared against the other bids only after the missing items are priced in.

• Design and engineering: layout, structural drawings, ventilation and cooling calculation, electrical single-line diagram
• Civil works and structure: levelling, foundations, floor slab, steel or panel structure, insulation, doors and anterooms
• All equipment packages: feeding, drinking, ventilation, cooling, heating, lighting, climate control, alarms, plus segment packages such as nests and egg handling
• Electrical distribution to each device, and the standby power interface — at minimum the ATS and generator sizing basis
• Installation with named responsibility: supplier crew, or local crew under supplier supervision with stated supervision days
• Commissioning against written performance criteria: air speed at bird level, temperature uniformity, static pressure, alarm function
• Training, as-built documentation, manuals and a priced first-year spare parts list
• Warranty terms with a defined start event, and a written exclusions list

Step 2: list inclusions and exclusions line by line

Build one sheet with a row per scope item and a column per bidder. Mark each cell included, excluded, or priced as an option. The exclusions that most often survive inside a turnkey label:

• Land, earthworks beyond a defined cut/fill allowance, and access roads
• Permits, licences, environmental studies and local inspection fees
• Utility connections to the site boundary: grid connection fee, transformer, water source and borehole
• Import duty, VAT treatment, customs clearance and port charges
• Offloading, cranes and on-site storage after delivery
• Generator itself where only the 'interface' is included, and fuel storage
• Supervision standby days caused by site delays, and the day rate beyond the included allowance
• Working capital items: first-flock feed, litter, chicks and consumables — never inside equipment scope, but they belong in the project budget next to it

Step 3: surface the risk items before award

Risk items are not prices, but they decide what the price is worth. Ask every bidder the same questions in writing and put the answers in the evaluation sheet next to the money.

• Performance guarantee: is there a guaranteed air speed, temperature or capacity figure, and what is the remedy if commissioning misses it?
• Liquidated damages for delay: rate per week, cap, and the events that suspend them
• Payment milestones and retention: how much is held back until acceptance, and what triggers its release
• Currency and validity: offer currency, validity period, and the escalation clause if the schedule slips
• Change-order mechanism: how variations are priced, and whether day rates are stated in advance
• Subcontracted scope: which parts are subcontracted locally — usually civil works — and who warrants their quality
• Warranty start event: shipment, delivery or commissioning — a warranty that starts at shipment can be half spent before the birds arrive
• Interface matrix: anything supplied by others, stated per line, so no scope sits between contracts

CAPEX normalisation rules

Apply these rules in order. Each one removes one source of artificial difference between the totals.

• One capacity basis: restate every offer per placed bird and per house, at the same stocking density and target weight
• One delivery point: restate all prices to the same Incoterm and site gate, adding freight, duty, clearance and inland transport where excluded
• One currency and date: convert at one stated rate on one stated date, and record the rate on the sheet
• Add back exclusions at one common local estimate per item — the same figure for every bidder, so your assumption cannot favour anyone
• Include supervision, erection labour, commissioning, training and first-year spares in every total, priced where excluded
• Separate priced options from base scope: compare base-to-base first, then options as a second pass
• Flag scope differences that money cannot fix: fewer fans for the same design temperature, thinner insulation, simpler controller class

Operating cost normalisation rules

Turnkey bidders increasingly quote energy and operating figures. Compare them only on a common basis, and treat any figure without a stated basis as unknown.

• Same climate file: energy claims must assume your design summer and winter conditions, not a temperate reference site
• Same energy price and escalation: one electricity price, one fuel price, one annual escalation rate for all bidders
• Same production basis: cycles per year, downtime, target weight and stocking density fixed across bids
• Include the quiet items: controller or remote-monitoring subscriptions, planned maintenance visits, pad and belt replacement intervals
• Ventilation and heating quality shows up in FCR and mortality, not in the equipment price — note design differences even where you cannot price them
• Use a common horizon and, if you discount, one discount rate for all bidders over the same number of years

What a low turnkey price usually means

After normalisation, the remaining price differences are real, and they come from a short list of causes: a genuinely leaner scope, a lower specification level, thinner risk allocation with more exclusions, a cheaper subcontracted civil package, or a supplier buying market entry. None of these is automatically wrong — but you should know which one you are buying before award, not during commissioning.

The evaluation sheet, not the headline total, is the decision document. When two normalised totals are close, the differentiators are the risk items from step 3: performance guarantee, retention, warranty start and local service coverage.

Buying direct from one manufacturer, or comparing first?

You can always contact a manufacturer or turnkey contractor directly, and for a small, well-defined order from a supplier you already trust that is often the fastest route. Many manufacturers offer free farm planning from your land size, bird type, capacity, climate and budget, ending in a layout and a quotation for their own equipment. That is useful work, but it is one supplier's design priced with one supplier's catalogue: there is no second offer on the same basis to show whether the scope, specification or price is typical.

Comparing first means fixing the requirement yourself — capacity, climate design conditions, automation level, delivery point and acceptance criteria — and asking several suppliers to price that same brief. HatchMatch is a broker for that step, not a manufacturer, contractor or lender: every brief receives human review, it can be shared with relevant suppliers, and HatchMatch aims to reply within two business days. Supplier participation, the number of offers, prices and delivery dates are not guaranteed, and you remain free to buy from any supplier, including one you found yourself.

• Direct is reasonable when: the scope is one equipment package, you have bought from the supplier before, local service is proven and you can benchmark the price yourself
• Comparing first is worth it when: the project is a complete house or farm, the budget is in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, financing needs comparable offers, or you cannot yet judge whether a design is oversized or undersized
• Either way: insist on the same written scope sheet, exclusions list, commissioning criteria and warranty start event from every supplier

How to check a supplier's ROI or payback figure

Equipment sellers increasingly publish payback examples, usually in the form payback = equipment investment ÷ monthly gain, where the monthly gain is labour savings plus feed savings plus extra product value minus the system's own operating cost. The formula is sound; the inputs decide the answer. A payback figure is a planning illustration, not a performance guarantee, unless the contract states it with a remedy.

Rebuild the claim yourself on your own inputs before relying on it, and use the same inputs for every bidder:

• Investment: use the normalised, landed, installed and commissioned total from this guide — not the ex-works equipment price
• Labour savings: your local wage, the headcount you would really remove, and the technicians automation adds
• Feed, mortality and production gains: ask which flock, climate and management baseline each percentage came from; treat an unsourced percentage as zero until supported
• Operating cost: your electricity and fuel price, maintenance, spare parts and any controller subscription
• Downtime and uptime: what local service response and stocked spares mean for days lost per year
• Run the numbers in the farm-cost calculator, which is HatchMatch's single tool for CAPEX, yield, profit, break-even, ROI and payback; its ranges are planning estimates and state their assumptions

Turnkey comparison sheet: what to check per bidder and the rule that makes it comparable

Score the sheet, not the brochure. Where two bidders tie after normalisation, the risk items — guarantee, retention, warranty start, local service — decide.